Why Walk When You Can Run
by debussy88
Summary: "You know, you can be angry at me if you want." Ianto didn't reply. He couldn't. He had already made up his mind. He had. This wasn't happening again. Anyway, he knew, more than anyone, no matter how charming...Jack never keeps his promises. Post S1.J/I
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This fic is ON HIATUS**

**I'm very sorry to say this, but I don't think that this fic will ever be finished. In my mind it needs a lot of work, and before I continue, I would want to take it down, do a lot of editing, and then put it back up. I'm not ready to give up on it yet, but that's just me. All I have for this story is already up, so I hope you enjoy what's there! **

"You know, you can be angry at me if you want."

That endlessly calm tone. Clipped. Decisive. _He _felt like screaming out 'You think I don't know that? You think that I can't look after myself. I don't need your condescension. And I especially don't need your opinion!' And after that, there would preferably follow a stream of curses in at least three different languages, French, Arabic, German, anything. He just wanted to fatally insult Jack in as many different languages as possible. He wanted to scream until he had no voice left. He wanted to rage at Jack with tears streaming down his face. Jack damn well deserved it after what he'd done. He wanted to hurl something against the harsh brick wall behind the man that would shatter satisfactorily into at least a hundred pieces. The porcelain would scatter to the floor, followed by anything else remotely breakable.

"Well, obviously something is wrong. What is it?"

He bit his tongue; and then thought again, and shifted so that his teeth were in danger of shattering. But at least his mouth wasn't filling with blood.

"Nothing." The period at the end of the sentence was so pronounced that it did absolutely nothing to deter Jack's constant stream of questions. The line of his jaw became even more pronounced.

"Just leave it Jack. It's nothing. Do you need anything else?" This time it was slightly more convincing, though the end was still a tad vindictive. Oh well.

He never _stopped_. Ianto knew exactly what Jack was trying to do. He was trying to drag out a response from Ianto. Anything to break that mask and provoke his true emotions to come pouring out with fervor. And it was working, damn it all. Jack wanted this fight, and there was absolutely no escape available for Ianto. Nothing. No coffee, no archives, not even a bloody rift alert. Apparently aliens had developed a new way to screw with Ianto's head that now included _not_ interrupting his life at crucial moments. To hell with it all.

* * *

Jack was too anxious to be amused. But for that, by now he would have been cracking up. Ianto was practically burning holes in the wall with his death glare. If a living person had been on the receiving end of that gaze, within about a minute they would have turned around and walked the other way _very _quickly, at risk of grievous bodily harm. He smirked. He was pretty sure that he was the only person that had ever lived to see Ianto that infuriated. But underneath his sarcastic denial there was an undercurrent of despair. Jack knew Ianto better than pretty much anyone else. He knew that Ianto knew that he was trying to clear the air. He also knew that Ianto could be damned stubborn when he wanted to be. And he knew that Ianto was not going to give up and let Jack back into his life very easily. He was going to remain silent until Jack walked away and gave up.

He was getting desperate by now. Jack knew the look on his face was twisting into grief. All he wanted to do was kiss Ianto until neither of them could breathe; and then keep kissing him, hard, until there was forgiveness and love and everything would be right in the world again. He'd dreamt of it, just _seeing _Ianto again. Physically knowing that Ianto was alive and well. But now that he'd seen Ianto, he wanted to be part of his life again. He wanted to know everything about the Welshman. He wanted to interact with Ianto again with no harsh repercussions for something so honest as love.

Pain twisted through him and tears pricked his eyes. What a fantasy. He wouldn't be surprised if Ianto hauled off and punched him in the face. There would probably be blood, and Jack would undoubtedly deserve it. But he just couldn't bear the thought of not being with Ianto. So he stayed, and even though it was practically a death sentence, he stayed, and asked Ianto one more question.

"Please. Please. Just….

Is there any possible way… you could still _want_ me?"

Ianto turned the full force of his glare on Jack, and the look in his eyes was on fire. It was fury and revulsion and heartbreak. There was no tenderness or indecision. Nothing. There was no love or sadness. There was _nothing. _This was worse than a blank mask. This was the look that had been in Ianto's eyes since he first saw Jack come back. This was how Ianto looked when he was alone. It had been building for three months.

Ianto was physically shaking. That thin line of control had snapped, and, as it did, tears started streaming down his face. Sobs came ripping out of his chest against his will. He was holding himself up against his desk, supporting his whole body weight with his arms. He looked as though he was restraining himself from collapsing-or holding himself back.

Shock. Paralyzing shock. How could he bear to let Jack see this? Iantowas such a private person. Jack had never once seen him lose control so completely. And it was painful. Jack knew his mouth was open and there was realization dawning in his eyes. He didn't want that Ianto shouldn't see him with pity on his face. He closed his eyes briefly, and choked down a sob.

"Yan…" reaching out a hand and taking a step towards him. He gritted his teeth and his clenched into a fist, and Jack froze. Of course. Mentally he corrected himself…. "Ianto." Another shock of pain through his body. "Just-"

"Don't" It was final, cold, hard; and so full of emotion that Jack's knees practically gave out. Relief washed over him. It was a violent feeling, sweeping away the emptiness of loss yet still intertwined with anguish. _Ianto_.

"Just don't…say anything. Th- There's nothing." And his voice broke on the last word.

"Please! Ianto I-"

"Get. Out." Now there was anger.

"No…I-I can't just leave you."

So suddenly, that is surprised even Jack, Ianto turned and threw his punch at the nearest solid wall. A very hard, unforgiving wall. Jack flinched.

"Get. The hell. Out." The venom was tangible. Ianto tensed against the wall and Jack just stared as he walked away.

* * *

"Bloody Hell!"

Ianto grimaced. "Owen."

"Sorry mate. But what in god's name did you _do?_"

He sighed. He knew it would come up eventually. Owen, of course, was examining him. He believed that the first word was out of Owen's mouth once seeing him trailing blood had been, very eloquently, "Jesus Christ!"

He sighed again. Might as well get it over with. He was resigned at this point. It was like ripping off a band-aid. Just make it sudden. Owen was speaking again. Ianto had to force himself to tune in.

"Your hand is shattered, and I really don't know what the hell you were-"

"I punched a wall."

Owen continued his examination for about half a second before freezing. Ianto looked up tentatively and then sighed and looked back down. Judging by the look on Owen's face it would be a while before he recovered form the shock. He glanced at his hand critically. Apparently it was broken in three places and he had torn a tendon. He didn't really feel the pain anymore. God, what was it about…him that made Ianto so incensed? He just-

"You did what." It was a straight request for information from Owen. Oh. Maybe not that long to recover from the shock. There was no way he was going to let this go. Still, Ianto decided to resort to sarcasm.

"I threw my hand towards an upright structure supporting the ceiling at a velocity that was very painful."

"Ha ha. And why did you punch a wall?"

"Uh….because Gwen refused to do her paperwork?"

"**Ianto**" That was his 'not even a weevil will deter me' voice. Ianto replied.

"It's nothing."

* * *

"It's nothing."

As soon as Owen saw Ianto, he was in shock. When he heard that professional Welsh voice telling him that the perpetually calm archivist hade hit a wall, he was on the brink of cardiac arrest. When Ianto started evading his questions, he was really pissed off. But it was only when Owen saw Ianto shut down, that he knew that whatever was going on here, it was serious. It had to do with the part of Ianto's life that he didn't want anyone else to know about. The part that hid Ianto's broken past, the part that no-one could predict. He watched that blank look slam across Ianto's face and despised it.

Ianto was intelligent enough to create his own Torchwood base, not to mention what he'd already done. Con his way into Torchwood 3, past **Captain **Jack Harkness, and rebuild a cyber-conversion unit from scratch. But what was scary was that Ianto was clever enough to blend into the team without a ripple. And that was what Ianto chose to do. He was more secretive than Jack, and he had dark and painful parts of himself that he didn't want anyone else to see. Owen was a little afraid of what Ianto was capable of.

He felt despair reach him. He was a doctor, and, if nothing else, he felt a responsibility to his team. There were endless problems to solve, and he could never do enough. This job destroyed you, inside and out. These were the injuries you carried for the rest of your life.

Sometimes Owen just sat and thought. Everyone here was just trying to survive one day at a time. What if any of them really tried to build a future for themselves? That was what normal people had; stability. Normal people with their normal lives. He already knew the answer to that question. He didn't believe in normality anymore. They were all damaged somehow.

The best he could do for anyone was patch them up, staunch their wounds, help them back to their feet. So that one day, when the time came, they would be able to save the world.

Owen looked slowly up at Ianto, sitting on the autopsy table, and searched his face. There was pain there, and sadness. Stress. They were all so young, of course it was a damn tragedy. Those emotions were reflected in his face every day. Only Owen had lived too much, and bitterness was etched into every line of his face as well.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ianto reminded Owen of why he didn't just quit and get Retconned. It would be a miracle. But the strength that was buried under layers of triviality had grown from their motivation. Not one of them felt trapped at Torchwood. And what kept them going was the fact that they would never want to do anything else. They did more in one day than a normal person could achieve in a lifetime, and what they saw every day convinced them that they could do more, run faster, save just one more person.

These people, the ones Owen worked with everyday had cores of steel. They were all strong. Since the Cyberman incident, Ianto had become one of the strongest people Owen had ever known. If Owen had to name the two hardest moments in Ianto's life….well….

It was something Owen had been required to think about once, back when Ianto had been on his list of "Team members who may commit suicide". He'd finally discovered, after the Breacon Beacons, the most important thing he could have possibly known about Ianto. The thing was, he was never willing to show his suffering or pain to others. It built up to the point where he withdrew into himself so completely that he barely spoke to those who he considered his friends.

After their disastrous outing to the countryside, the Torchwood team had returned to the Hub exhausted and then had immediately gone home, Jack ordering everyone at least two days of rest and recuperation, barring emergencies.

Owen called Ianto at least three times after checking on everybody else, and had then proceeded to break the speed limit in an obscene race to get to Ianto's flat. As he walked in he'd seen Ianto's suit coat abandoned near the door; and, with a sick sense of foreboding he'd turned the corner to find Ianto passed out on his kitchen floor after overdosing on pain meds. Owen still remembered the scene with a nightmare-like clarity.

Everything was sharp planes and cold angles, swimming in front of his vision, as he half-ran towards Ianto's side. Ianto, slumped across the tile, stretched out with the fluorescent lights hitting his face, illuminating the trickle of blood down his forehead and jaw-where he had hit his head on the counter falling. He had been so pale, sweating. Unnaturally still. It was the first time the doctor had panicked.

Owen worked feverishly over Ianto until he was stable. The way Ianto had broken down in his arms once he was conscious was terrifying. Saying he just couldn't take it anymore, that he'd seen too much. He'd been disillusioned with the world. Owen had said just one word, "Tosh", trying to remind Ianto of something he needed to know. Ianto started crying all over again. Whether in relief or self-pity he couldn't tell. Ianto had let Torchwood poison him. The way he coped with everything was by throwing himself into his work. He kept going until someone stopped him. And even then he refused anyone's sympathy.

Tosh was the one who had the strongest connection with Ianto. She bought him coffee sometimes, talking to him in a subdued tone. Owen had caught snatches of fast-paced Japanese from bothof them on more than one occasion. So now it was her name Owen invoked, desperately trying to remind Ianto that they needed each other to depend on. That she needed him and that Ianto was not alone.

It worked; but Ianto was never the same after that trip. Owen would never forget that.

The second time, it wasn't psychological torture. It was worse. The second time was after Jack left.

No-one had had any idea of what to do. They'd each approached him, only to receive polite comments and frosty denials. Ianto had spent about 98% of his time in the archives and the rest in Jack's office, acting as his second in command, keeping a careful distance from every single member of the team. He worked, sure, he filed and kept up with new artifacts and was completely diplomatic towards UNIT (which was a miracle in itself). He'd taken a cold control, assuming a role he was never meant to have, vacated by someone whose absence was so much more significant than an empty office. Directly after Jack had vanished, Ianto's heart has been broken.

And that brings us up to now, when Jack had returned and reassumed his role as the team's charismatic leader. Meanwhile, Ianto had made use of his free time, making a careful and incontrovertible decision not to put up with any more shit. From anyone. Least of all Captain Jack Harkness. Torchwood had it's Teaboy back.

Ianto had always been a solid presence in their lives. He filled a gap in the team that they didn't even realize was there. He was always in the Hub, with coffee or food, or that file they had desperately needed for days that they couldn't find anywhere. He was silent support, never asking thanks, offering things that helped them through every particularly impossible day.

But now, he would back them up from the Hub, proposing ideas and giving them information that ended up being vital to the mission at hand. He coordinated the comms and stabilized the team. He was their focus. It was hard to beleive that the team had ever survived without Ianto.

On field missions he would immediately take the lead when a situation spiraled out of control. He organized the pursuit without hesitation, yelling into his earpiece while pulling out his gun, stowed safely away behind his jacket. He had gained new respect from the team while Jack was away, simply because he had risen to fill the gaps, working as hard as he could as he was needed.

When Jack left, Torchwood 3 was left dangerously shorthanded. Ianto's fieldwork had saved lives.


	2. Chapter 2

_About 20 minutes earlier…_

One fine day in the Hub everything was proceeding as normal. The computers were humming in a contented mannter running the latest programs (much to Tosh's satisfaction). Owen was in the autopsy bay, doing some complicated medical thing that no-one understood. And Gwen was the only one who knew that he was actually running tests on Jack's blood sample.

"Oi, Ianto! I need coffee up here."

And then-silence.

That caught some attention. Tosh paused at her keyboard, right in the middle of her project predicting the increase of Weevil migration to the surface. She turned, worried. Usually there would be an irritated "Get it yourself!" floating up from the archives. Or something along those lines.

Tosh had been ridiculously over-protective of Ianto since Jack returned, a fact that she conceded too. He was her best friend- and this silence was alarming.

Owen looked up towards the main Hub too, halting in his work.

A loud crash from the direction of the archives. Tosh and Owen looked at each other in shock, and then sprang up when they was Ianto storming up the stairs and through the Hub; the look on his face murderous.

"Shit!" That was Owen, noticing the red dripping from Ianto's hand.

"Ianto!" Tosh, her face alive with concern. He ignored both of them and stalked towards the upper level staircase. Tosh knew he was probably going to Myfanwy's nest. The pteradon was so loyal to Ianto that she would try attack anyone who approached him unless he called her off. Based on the mood that occupied Ianto, he would likely let her eat the people that tried to bother him right now. Owen and Tosh looked at each other again. They were on the same page so much lately it was scary.

"What the hell happened?"

"Didn't you notice? Jack isn't around here either."

"Damn it-Okay, look, I'll check on Ianto, that hand looked really bad. You talk to Jack. I'm likely to bloody murder him with my bare hands."

"Yeah…you check on Ianto." Myfanwy chose that moment to screech loudly. "Good luck!" Tosh scurried off while Owen looked up towards Myfanwy's nest with renewed apprehension.

"Yeah. Good luck. Thanks a lot Tosh."

He started to climb the stairs, still muttering under his breath. "He's going to bloody kill me."

* * *

After Tosh made her escape, she started to wonder where Gwen was. The Hub had more or less regained it's organization and comfort since Jack returned. They'd all fallen back into the same pattern. The only outsider was Jack. The team had changed.

She was walking through the archives, wondering what she could possibly say to him when she rounded a corner and there he was.

He was leaning against the wall just staring into space. His face was haunted. Tosh's eyes flitted over his. It didn't look like Ianto had hit him. It looked like Ianto had decimated him. Whatever Ianto had said to Jack, whatever he'd done; It had obviously been devastating. Jack looked as though he was on the brink of breaking down into a trembling mess. As she watched, he collapsed, sliding to the floor, knees against his chest.

This wasn't the Jack she knew, and it frightened her. Softly, "He doesn't need me any more Tosh." He wasn't looking at her as he spoke. He wasn't looking at anything. She approached him quietly-she had to help, she had to do something. But she didn't know what he needed. Or rather, she did, but the one thing she couldn't do was be Ianto for Jack. Something came to mind. It might not do much good, but… well it sure couldn't get any worse. Jack was trembling against the wall.

She started in a determined tone "You know Jack…when I was 18 I met this guy."

No response. "This crazy wonderful guy. I didn't have the courage to ask him out or even talk to him. I was so damn scared Jack. And after I graduated, I never saw that man again-even though I was still hoplessly, desperately in love with him." Jack looked up blankly.

"Jack, If you just let him go-he'll run. And he won't ever look back, just to save himself from the heartache. He'll leave you. And you're still sitting down here, acting like a coward, letting him go because you can't find the strength to stop him."

She continued, trying just this once to use everything in her power to demand that Jack act. Because he could not just lose Ianto. She'd made those mistakes before, and both of them deserved this speck of happiness before the world caught up.

"The Doctor changed you." Jack's head snapped up again, red-rimmed eyes meeting hers for the first time, really looking at her. She continued soberly.

"He made you a hero Jack. And now you need to prove you have that courage. All relationships are complicated. Don't you dare fall at the first hurdle."

* * *

_Back at Myfanwy's Nest… _

_(After a near-death experience involving an over-protective dinosaur)_

"Ianto, you have to let me examine your damn hand. You know it's broken."

An unidentifiable noise of exasperation comes from above.

"Fine! But if you pester me, I will reserve the right to release Myfanwy on you."

"Don't even-! God, that bloody chicken has it out for me."

Ianto ignores him

"Okay sweetheart, I'm leaving now but I'll be back- yes, good girl."

"Cooooooo"

"Remember, Owen is not your friend."

"What? You can't just-"

A cheerful voice interrupts.

"Okay, Let's go."

"Damn right. Autopsy bay, now."

Owen sits him down on the table, and for the first time gets a good look at his hand.

"Bloody Hell!"

"Owen."

"Sorry mate, but what in God's name did you do?"…


	3. Chapter 3

**I'd like to preliminary apologize that it took me so long to get this chapter up. I've been having some writer's block. Still, I am really excited about the response to this story! I'll be trying to post maybe a chapter a week or more often than that, depending on how fast I can get it down on paper : ) Thanks to all who R and R'd. I appreciate it!**

_I wish there was something more I could do for him. I know he deserves this chance. He probably thought I was judging him, just because I love Ianto too… He was just sitting there. He never lets anyone in! I guess that's one thing that he and Ianto have in common. That stubbornness. They can both be such __men__ sometimes._

The corners of her mouth lifted into a smile just as a solid, tall human-shaped wall crashed into her. She had been paying _zero_ attention to where she was walking, trying to figure out what to do about Jack. Not only was the situation getting very emotional; eventually, it was going to make for a difficult working environment.

"Whoa! Oh, Tosh I was just looking for you. I talked to Ianto…you'd better have a go. Did you get anything out of Captain Idiot?"

Tosh felt her heart rate double.

"Uh….um…."

"Oh! Sorry. So what happened?" Owen took a few steps back from where he had been seriously invading her personal space; and suddenly Tosh could breathe again. It still took her a couple seconds to form coherent thought. For God sakes! She could write computer programs in her sleep, but put her in a room with Owen and she couldn't add properly, never mind figure out how to tell the team that Jack was a complete mess.

"Uh…Right! No, I didn't really talk to Jack much." Wow. You'd think she'd be able to put together a clear sentence. The damage that had been done… She started again. "Owen, he's in really bad shape. I've never seen him like this before. I think that they were more serious than we thought."

Owen looked at her skeptically.

"No, seriously. Ianto means….a lot...to Jack, and he definitely didn't see that when Jack left. Jack is a wreck, he's depressed and upset, and he will not be able to lead this team unless he gets his act together. In addition to all this, Ianto doesn't know how long he's been waiting for that blue police box to land somewhere in his vicinity. The Hub will fall apart with the two of them fighting."

Owen looked at her even more skeptically. "Okay, Jack I can understand. But Ianto? Really?"

"Well do you want to drink decaf for the next month? Or however long it takes for Jack to figure Ianto out."

Every time she recalled the look of dawning horror on Owen's face after their conversation, it made her giggle. Or snort into her coffee. She liked to imagine what was going through his head at that moment. She thought he was probably wondering how long it would take _Jack_ to get inside someone's head. How long it would take him to understand his lover's thoughts and feelings. Ianto'sthoughts and feelings no less, the walking enigma himself. Based off his attitude towards Jack, he would be thinking something along the lines of 'Yeah right, like that's ever gonna happen.' And he would probably be right. Jack had never had deal with something like this before.

Still she thought it was still salvageable. Call Tosh optimistic any day, but she was a hidden romantic. For her, the dominant feeling towards Jack and Ianto's relationship was happiness. She wanted it to work out. It was better than focusing on her love life.

Office drama was always present in the Hub. It made things _much_ more interesting. Ianto and Owen's continuing rivalry had sprung up recently again, and the new boy was definitely causing some ripples in the normally depressed atmosphere of the office. He may not have given them a lot of perspective like Gwen usually had for the team, but he added something. Tosh didn't dwell on it. She'd gotten over Ianto's presence a long time ago, something that wasn't immensely difficult for her. Besides, Jack's relationship with Ianto went way beyond petty drama.

Owen and Tosh walked back up to the Hub in semi-companionable silence, both thinking. There _had_ to be something they could do.

* * *

_A word of advice from a Torchwood employee. Never put yourself in a position where you could possibly be shot. It fucking hurts._

_A flash of light as he cracked his head on the pavement. Why am I lying on the pavement? It's cold. And wet. It's cold, so cold. He couldn't feel his side. Why couldn't he feel his side? He started panicking. I think I'm going into shock. Hyperventilating maybe. Definitely hyperventilating. His chest heaved with exertion and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth._

_Suddenly Jack appeared in his line of vision, and sound came rushing back into his world on the dimly-lit street. "Stay with me Ianto stay with me. Open your eyes damn it! Come on Yan. Please stay. Please. Stay with me..." That was Jack, a stream of words pouring out of his mouth. His voice tripping over them in the hurry to get something out to keep Ianto holding on._

_Ianto groaned with pain. Now it comes, of course. Blinding, white-hot pain. "Jack." he ground out, heaving another breath. "Jack. What." another breath. "?"_  
_"Shhh. Its fine, Owen is taking care of it." his voice trembled with fear._  
_He groaned again. "Jack..."_

_The streetlights glinted, spreading yellow light across the violent scene. Ianto, on the ground. Jack, leaning over him, with absolutely no regard for the filth of the alleyway, his period military coat abandoned to help stop the bleeding. Owen was running towards them, shouting into his ear piece, while Tosh and Gwen brought the SUV around. There was no sign of the shooter._

_"Jack, look at me. Jack."_

_"I'm here Ianto, I'm here. What is it?"_  
_Ianto grasped his hand tightly and gasped out a few more words._  
_"Stay with me."_

* * *

It had been **two weeks**. Two weeks since Jack had returned, since Ianto had confronted him. Two very long weeks for everyone except Gwen, who had kept well out of it. She actually worked, putting in Artifact reports to UNIT. She did more than anyone else during those two weeks. The two weeks where Jack and Ianto were being strangely domestic and refusing to talk to each other. Gwen felt like she was in the Twilight Zone.

Toshiko was pretending to work, and really trying to keep an eye out for the remote sign of any trouble. Owen wasn't even pretending, mainly because he didn't have anything he was supposed to be doing. No sick people, no dead aliens, and he didn't feel like pissing Ianto off by trying to invade the Archives. Let's just sat Ianto had been a little _touchy _lately. In truth, there was a certain file that he had been looking for detailing the previous doctor's use of the singularity scalpel...but that could always wait. You know, until Tea boy wasn't going to snark at anyone who came within a 3-foot radius of him.

Ianto was serving "below-par" coffee (in Owen's words), but no one was going to dare mention that to him. Jack was cooped up in his office like a sulky teenager, refusing to let anyone in.  
"Rift alert!"

Four-fifths of the team breathed a collective sigh of relief. Finally, something to get them out of the Hub. One-fifth of the team scowled. Ianto knew that this was not going to end well.

"Everybody in the SUV. You too Ianto, this is a big one." that was Gwen, like she had a right to order him about. He frowned again.

"What do we got?" Jack, demanding details of the situation. His leading tone was instantly recognizable, in spite of the strain underlying those four words.

"Looks like a wild animal of some kind." Tosh, filling him in.

Throughout the whole duration of the SUV ride, Ianto was still silent. He didn't know what to say. _God: I want to go home. And maybe a cuppa too please? How is this going to possibly work? The first Rift Alert in weeks, and I can't be the same field agent that I was... I don't trust him._ The mere finality of that statement filled Ianto with grief. He had avoided thinking about…the Captain…for the last few weeks, burying himself in his work. And now, thinking about how they were going to work together… he had to face his feelings towards the man again. _I just don't trust him_. A voice in the back of Ianto's head whispered, forcing him to confront something he really didn't want too. _I don't trust him…like I used too._

Owen spoke up, jolting Ianto out of his careless distraction. "Ianto, stay in the car for now. We need you on back up in case it comes this way. We don't know what this thing is." It was a hurried tone, said while climbing out of the passenger seat of the SUV. Like he didn't already know that. Still, it didn't sound condescending coming from Owen, probably because his usual tone of voice was disdainful. Instead of infuriatingly protective (like everyone else), Owen actually sounded respectful and understanding towards him. There's a first.

He stayed in the SUV, trying to bury his irritation at Jack and the whole damn situation. It was just too surreal. The last few weeks had been bloody torture, and now they had all dropped everything to work together on a Rift Alert. He couldn't exactly say why the situation was so frustrating, but most of it had to do with the very recent overbearing tendencies of the team. Which were mainly focused on Jack and himself.

He refocused at the situation at hand. Raising a hand up to the comms, he looked up, just now noticing where they were.

"Oh, damn" he breathed out in realization. This was too familiar. He'd seen this before. Same situation, same city, same street. He stepped out of the SUV urgently. "Damn it!"

Tosh's voice sounded over the airwaves "What is it Ianto? What's going on?"

"Guys you have to get out of there now. I know what this is, and it is not good."

Jack was the next to pipe in. "I need some details here Ianto. Just how not good are we talking?"

"Not good as in suspect is over six feet tall, armed and dangerous. And will shoot you if he suspects you are a threat in some way. Like if you draw a gun!"

"What-have you two met before?" Jack actually managed to sound jealous whilst talking about alien life.

"Yes for god's sake Jack! Torchwood One." He was too anxious to feel pain at the mention of his old job. "And three of our team were eliminated before we could figure out what the hell we were trying to avoid being killed by. It's like a type of police force, except they send out individual agents. An identical rift spike happened in this area not too long ago. That thing may look like an animal, but they're trained to complete a specific mission with no regard for alien life. And that would be us."

Jack's voice sounded down the comms again, straight to the point this time. "What kind of mission?"

"It could be anything. Sometimes they help. Did anything else come through the rift within the last 48 hours?"

Tosh spoke again "Yeah...a black box, made out of a steely-type alloy. We couldn't get it to work, but we didn't try all that hard either. It looked like some kind of weapon."

"That'll be it. Usually these things attack only if necessary; but if it gets inside the Hub we'll have a whole other problem on our hands. They work alone, and are supposed to be anonymous to the indigenous population. If this creature figures out that we know anything about them, there's going to be trouble. We found an old file last time, but we couldn't communicate with either him or her, eliminating any chance of collaboration. It's a long story. I'll fill you in on the way back to base."

"It seems pretty clear around here. Maybe it didn't notice us?" Gwen, always optimistic.

"All the more reason to leave. I don't like this. We need to find out more about these creatures, they're dangerous."  
Just then, a low growl came from behind Ianto.

"Dash'le kegn lad'we. Yaf'chde draj ke uthk." It wasn't a voice Ianto recognized. There was undeniable power in that voice. He didn't understand the language, but it was definitely threatening.

"Shit." he whispered, turning around slowly with his hands in the air. He raised a shaky hand to the comms, still whispering.

"Tosh." It was a plea. "Unidentified alien, maybe 6'1", looks kind of like a centaur, all black, thickly muscled, armed. The weapon…like that steely-type alloy you described, old but powerful. Looks exactly like our regulation handguns." He put his hands behind his head and tried to look surrendering. He knew it wouldn't work. He murmured two more words, for the first time, really scared of what could happen. "Please hurry"

The creature (he or she) was massive. Humanoid, but only just. It didn't look like anything Ianto had seen before. Last time, they could only guess at its physical shape, estimation from shooting patterns and short clips of CCTV footage. Now he or she was less than 5 feet away from Ianto, and the real feeling that went through him was indescribable. It was like his brain had been hardwired to react with fear. He steeled himself, tensing, and tried to prepare for whatever might be forthcoming. His eyes flitted to the narrow street to his right. _There's cover if I need it. I still have my handgun on me, if Gwen and Owen come from the north side and Jack comes around the back, we'll have it surrounded. But we still need air cover._ He felt a jolt of fear for the team. _We don't have enough. It won't be enough to keep someone from getting hurt. _

The creature's eyes narrowed in aggression as they spotted Ianto's gun, usually safely concealed behind his jacket. Ianto registered the minute movement as soon as it occurred, and half a second later he was flinging himself sideways to the ground, while trying to draw his gun and praying for backup. All he saw was an impossibly fast flash of light in his direction before he hit his head on the pavement, and was still.


	4. Chapter 4

**Quick AN: song for this chapter is "A Drop in the Ocean" by Ron Pope. Check it out.**

Tosh held Ianto's hand all the way back to the Hub.

For once, Jack had wanted to call the hospital rather than take him back to base; but Owen had objected. Loudly. He'd yelled on the way to the SUV that Ianto was going to be fine, that he needed the med kit, and to put the damn phone down you don't need to call 911, _I'm a fucking doctor! _Jack had stripped off his coat to stop the bleeding and staggered to the SUV, supporting a half conscious Ianto to the back seat.

Owen climbed in the back with him, the look on his face fierce. He had switched into professional mode the instant he'd heard Ianto's voice on the comms cursing. Ianto didn't curse often. Owen had been the first to take Ianto seriously when he started to explain what was wrong. And Owen had been more alert than the rest of the team, taking off towards the SUV when he heard the crack of a gunshot.

Nevertheless, Jack was right behind him, and the first to reach Ianto, naked panic in his eyes. Owen shoved him out of the way roughly and started to put pressure on the wound, simultaneously cursing and shouting directions into his earpiece at anyone who would listen.

As they made their way back to the Hub, Tosh sat in the backseat, and held Ianto's hand. She was still a little disbelieving of what had happened. She didn't want to lose Ianto. She couldn't. One memory kept playing over again in her head, something that had happened a few days ago. It was impossible for her to forget.

_"Don't touch that!" Owen's voice was harsh and biting as he yelled at her. Everyone was tense this week, but Owen more than anyone. His taciturn mood had taken a turn for the worse, and he was doing his best to deter anyone from entering the autopsy bay._

"_S-Sorry." She stammered out. She had been bringing him a coffee, and the strange metallic glimmer on an unknown artifact had caught her attention._

"_Just go Tosh." The next words out of his mouth were an ignorant brush-off. He wanted to be left alone. She fled. _

_How could six words affect her so much? She felt her eyes filling with tears as she tried to find somewhere to be alone. She could barely see where she was going, but somehow she ended up in the archives. Well, that was okay: it was usually completely empty this time of day except for…._

_Ianto. "Tosh?"_

_Damn. _

_He looked up from his file, and instantly put it aside when he saw the look on her face. "Oh Tosh." His eyes filled with concern, and suddenly his arms were around to her. "You can't let him get to you like that, you just can't." She let out a harsh sob into his chest, and her fist curled against his shoulder. _

"_He never- he just-"_

"_It's okay." He shushed her, whispering words of comfort in her ear, stroking her arms. The words were a mixture of Welsh and Japanese. She didn't care. It just helped. These were the moments when Tosh understood why no-one should be alone. It was so cheesy, but both of them had been alone. Before. _

_Now, with his voice in her ear, and a comforting hug enveloping her, she didn't know how she had survived without a friend. She couldn't define a clear moment in which they had become permanent and solid, but one day, just one, Ianto had become her savior. Neither of them were extroverted or loud. The others were soldiers, fighting for the peace and safety of the planet. Tosh and Ianto weren't soldiers. Torchwood had damaged them; both were more hurt than they were willing to let on. Then one day they'd found each other; and they'd survived. _

_She quieted in his brotherly embrace and was soon looking away in embarrassment. "I don't know why I let him get to me like this."_

"_I do." She looked up at him, a little unsure. What was he getting at? He met her confused gaze with one of his own and sighed, a little resigned._

"_Hon, I know what it's like to love someone unconditionally. To love them so much that you can't let them go. To love them so much that it physically pains you to be away from them. I've done it before." He looked at her again warmly, smiling. "Several times."_

_He paused as a shout echoed down the corridor. "Tosh?" It was someone that sounded suspiciously like Jack. Emotions flitted across Ianto's features so fast that Tosh had a hard time keeping up with them. Brief shock, anger, pain, and then complete neutrality; all in less than 5 seconds. When Jack appeared around the corner, his face was in a mask of subservience, and all emotion had vanished. Not to mention all the previous warmth directed at Tosh. Jack noticed Tosh first._

"_Tosh? I heard what happened upstairs. I just wanted to let you know that-Oh." Jack noticed Ianto second. Their eyes met for a few seconds before Jack dropped his gaze awkwardly. "I'll just… leave you two alone. If you need to talk, Tosh…" He looked at Ianto again. She couldn't decipher what was in his eyes. But what he said next sounded defeated. "I'll…be in my office."_

_After he left, Ianto looked after him with a mixture of longing and regret in his eyes. He spoke again, more to himself than to Tosh. "I know what it's like. You just can't stop loving them…no matter how many times you try."_

Jack was the one holding Ianto's other free hand; all the way back to the Hub.

* * *

Apparently, in a near-death experience, your life will flash in front of your eyes. Either Ianto wasn't dying, or that was an urban myth. He hoped it was the former. When Ianto hit the pavement, he couldn't feel a thing. Completely numb. The pain hit around the same time as Owen turned the corner. It was excruciating. It _felt _like he was dying, and he said as much to Owen, who chuckled and retorted that his sense of humor hadn't improved much. Of course, Owen was also the one to tell him to '_Shut up you bloody idiot, you've been _shot.'.

"Thanks." He mumbled through gritted teeth. "I hadn't. Realized."

"Ianto, I need you to stop moving. Okay? Try to relax. Also, you **need** to stop talking, you're making this worse. You're going to be fine, I promise. But for God's sake, be quiet."

Ianto tried to focus on something else, turning his head. He saw Jack out of the corner of his eye, pale and shaking. Owen followed his line of sight, glancing at Jack for a moment, and then shouted frantically for Gwen, telling her to get Jack away from here, into the car. Jack had blatantly refused, taking a few deep breaths to calm down. His look hadn't improved all that much, but sense returned to his eyes. Ianto was still panting, trying to remember what had just happened, while also trying to ignore the result of said experience. His life wasn't flashing before his eyes, but he couldn't hold onto a single train of thought either. It was all impressions; the foremost being agony in his side.

All of a sudden someone was lightly slapping his cheek. His eyes had closed and he hadn't even noticed. The darkness was comforting. "C'mon Ianto, snap out of it, hang on." Something in him recognized Owen's voice, and he blearily dragged his eyes open, the world around him blurry.

"It's the blood loss!" Owen again, shouting at someone. Ianto didn't hear the words. "We need to get him back to the Hub. Now."

The tapping at his jaw was back. "Focus on my voice, Ianto come on. I need you to stay awake. Remember? Torchwood, fights aliens. If you don't stop me, I'll have to file the report myself." There was another blur, and then Jack was talking to him, nervous tremors in his voice. His beautiful Jack.

"Ianto! Come on. There it is. Up you go."

Ianto groaned as he was half pulled to his feet; the ground was spinning underneath him. Jack's arm was around his waist, supporting him. Warmth. It was comforting. Somehow he felt safe. Jack's smell hit him and wrapped around him, spicy and refreshing. It was all he could think about.

"Okay, Gwen needs to drive. I'll be in the back with Ianto, and Jack, your job is to keep him awake. I don't care how."

"Okay." Jack was still slightly pale, but looked serious. Ianto was lying in the backseat of the van, lethargic from his wound, and fear flickered in his eyes as he realized how serious the situation was. Jack started to talk.

"Ianto, look at me, come on." He rolled his head to look at Jack, still breathless. "That's it." Jack smiled, showing his teeth. It was strained, but genuine. "Hey there. You have to stay awake until we get back to the Hub, okay? I don't feel like losing any of my people today. I know I'm not your favorite person in the world right now, but you're just going to have to stick with me until Owen is less busy."

Ianto smiled weakly. "Jack. Harkness. Being, honest." He breathed out. "Never thought I'd…see the day."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack smiled again a little more strongly. He tried to put some enthusiasm into his next statement. "But you guys have gotten more proficient at asking questions ever since John Hart, the ex-Time Agent came along. I've almost come close to telling you which stories are true."

"Nice psychotic ex…by the way. I've been….meaning to mention that…to you. Hopefully your taste has…improved."

Jack chuckled. "Sure it has. It has."

Ianto's eyes rolled back in his head as Owen gave started to probe the wound, snapping on latex gloves.

"Ianto? Ianto!" Jack's words started to flow just a little bit more desperately. "Come on. Do you remember that time we went out for chips? My coat had been mutilated by that little blue alien thing, with the huge claws, and you teased me about it the whole way to the restaurant." Jack smiled weakly. "You couldn't let it go."

"Yeah…You-" Ianto gasped as Owen withdrew his fingers and put pressure on the gunshot once more. His chest heaved with exertion. "You…said that you didn't want to….go out that night. I couldn't…figure out why until you refused to put a jacket on- even though…it was almost 4 degrees…outside."

"Yeah. Remember?"

"You were…restless the whole time. Because you were so uncomfortable … without that damn coat. I convinced you to go without it. There was this great dessert place. On the corner."

"Yeah." Jack smiled again. "Only time I ever went anywhere without wearing my overcoat. It turned out fine though. We ate ice cream on the docks, and you… you kissed me, and we walked back to the Hub, shivering the whole way."

"We're here!" Owen. Shouting. "Get him onto the lift, its steady enough and I can get him to the autopsy bay with some better painkillers. I'll give him a transfusion; but I'll have to keep him under for at least half an hour."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. Let's go." It took a while to get Ianto down to the Hub, and by that time he was almost completely unconscious. As soon as Ianto was settled, Owen promptly kicked everyone out, snapping at them anxiously. It took another 15 minutes to get Tosh and Jack away from Ianto's side. Gwen hadto get them both out, so that Owen could make sure Ianto was going to fully recover. He was not about to lose someone else. Not even close.

* * *

When Ianto woke up, he was confused. He was lying in the medical bay. On the autopsy table? And it was very cold. He blinked a few times and dragged his eyes open to see the arched ceiling of the Hub. _What?_ A dry, sarcastic voice came from his left. "Morning sunshine." He turned his head to see Owen sitting by his side, staring at him wryly.

Ianto immediately tried to sit up, swaying dizzily. "Whoa!" Owen sprang up from his stool to grip his shoulders. "You need to lie down."

"Owen?" he mumbled. "Where….?"

"You're in the Hub. It's okay."

Owen was the first one Ianto talked too. He was still in shock, but recovering. Owen was calm and steady, telling him what had happened. The official diagnosis was a severe gunshot wound to the stomach, mild concussion and bed rest for the next two weeks. Restricted movement for the next four weeks after that. Ianto wasn't very happy about it, but then again, he didn't have to be. He was okay; but Owen had threatened him with sedatives if he even thought about going into the field within the next 2 months. He was officially grounded.

Ianto tried to avoid thinking about his painful experience for a few days, but when the debriefing on the mission outcome started, that strategy was shot to hell. He finally stopped fighting and went home. There was a lot he needed to think about.

Every member of the team visited him at least once. Owen came almost every day, checking on him, making sure he was alright. Tosh came most often after that, bringing along a chess board, and a few movies he had never seen. If Owen was his constant voice of reason, Tosh had been his light in some dark times.

When they didn't have anything to talk about, they sat in comfortable silence, playing cards. When they did talk, it was about anything and everything. They argued about books, she filled him in on her new project, they talked about the team. Tosh was the first one Ianto talked to about Jack. To fill in the gaps, they played chess. Constantly.

They were a pretty even match for each other, and it was in a fun competitive spirit. He couldn't count how many games they had played during those weeks. Both Ianto and Tosh won. They had a running score on the whiteboard pinned to the fridge. When Gwen came over, it was a little awkward. But of course, she was very kind, and she filled him in on what was going on at work. She never did figure out the scoring system he and Tosh used for chess.

The person he most wanted to see stayed away. Jack stopped at his apartment a grand total of once. Ianto was starting to believe it had just been to confirm that he was still alive. Jack stood uncomfortably in the doorway until Ianto invited him in, saying that if he was going to visit, he might as well do it properly. Jack seemed uncomfortable with the idea, but he'd gone inside, not his usual swaggering self and looking very nervous. He hadn't met Ianto's eyes. Just talked to him for a few minutes and then left. Ianto would rather forget that particular visit until he could make some semblance of sense out of it.

These were the thoughts that occupied his mind for the 14 days in which he recovered. Without anything to work on, Ianto had too much time to think. Ideas and hypothetical outcomes ran around his head in circles. He couldn't seem to come to any conclusions, or stop thinking about what had gone on between him and Jack. He needed to sort this out in his head.

Tosh had just left for the night. They'd watched "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and giggled about the nonsense of it over popcorn and soda. When she vanished out the door with a smile, he was grinning too. His smile faded as she left, and he slowly changed into a T-shirt and boxers, still drowsy from the long night.

He went back to work tomorrow.

It had been almost exactly two weeks, and he no longer had an excuse to stay away. He wasn't exactly sure if he wanted to see Jack or not. At least, that was what Ianto told himself. Deep down, in a place he didn't want to acknowledge, Ianto desperately wanted to see Jack again. And still, Ianto was unquestionably furious with him. Anger was easier than the pain. He'd left. He'd completely disappeared at the most convenient time for himself. Of course, Jack was still needed in Cardiff. His disappearance wasn't convenientfor Torchwood Three. Jack knew that, he knew, and he still left.

Ianto didn't know if he could forgive Jack for that.

When Jack…when he…when Jack died;really, finally at the hands of Abaddon, he knew how brokenness felt. How it burned inside you. How it seemed to leave you with nothing. Just emptiness. Just darkness. The world had almost ended. Again. Ianto hadn't cared. His careful justifications fell away; and he couldn't deny his feelings for Jack any longer. His passion, his adoration towards Jack…Ianto didn't think he could feel that way ever again. He trusted someone again. He cared about Jack. So much. He didn't even know how far he would go, just to make sure he never saw Jack hurt. He'd started to let himself into a relationship he couldn't control anymore.

It was just another mission. Just another insane alien, only it was different. Billis had manipulated the team like the tools they were to him, and eventually they had all betrayed Jack. Ianto had been filled with astonishing regret and grief as soon as he heard the gunshot go off. As soon as he saw Jack falling to the floor. But of course, that was somehow okay, because Jack would be coming back to them, and it would all work out fine in the end. Self-delusion, he realized now.

After, the world had seemed to be ending. The sky falling apart, an indestructible demon demolishing the city and Jack left him. He ran with Gwen, his arms around her shoulders, facing down the monster, being a hero. Ianto had been too busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on, never mind stop Jack from doing this. And he had wantedto stop Jack. Ianto would have fought him for hours. He would have yelled at him, even begged him. Physically restrained him; if it would have prevented his Jack from running into the middle of the battle and sacrificing himself because of the team's grievous mistake.

He was pretty sure he had known what was coming. They were all looking to Jack for answers as they saw what had been brought down on the city. They rallied around Jack too late. Ianto's body figured it out before his mind did. He had a bruising grip on Jack's upper arms and shoulders, refusing to let him go. He had known what Jack was going to do. Jack had turned to Gwen and said two words, "Just you." and realization hit Ianto like a bolt of lightning.

By the time his mind caught up and he tried to go after Jack, he and Gwen were already in the SUV. Owen held him back uncomprehendingly, trying to reason with him that Jack had a plan, that everything would work out. Ianto already knew. He had shouted at them '_You don't understand!'_ trying to run after Jack. When he finally explained, hurriedly, anguished, they let him go, and he had sprinted like his life depended on it.

When he finally got there, it was already over. Gwen was kneeling over his body.

He'd seen it dozens of times. Any minute now. Any minute he would come gasping back to life, and Ianto would kiss him and Jack would forgive them and then the team would know about them, but it was okay because Jack was his and he would be alive.

He barely remembered the scene, the massacre, because Jack was lying on the ground and all his fears had been realized and Jack was really, finally dead. He couldn't think of anything but that. All he could see was that body, too still. His Jack was alive, he would always be alive. He had to be.

He'd stumbled across the field, fallen to his knees next to him. He couldn't feel the tears streaming down his face, quiet cries emerging from his mouth. His hands were shaking, touching Jack's face, his coat, never staying in one place too long, afraid of the pain.

Abaddon had disappeared. And even though Cardiff was safe, he knew what it felt like to have his world destroyed. The sky could have burned over his head, the stars could explode, the Rift could have ripped open and torn the city apart, and he wouldn't have noticed. On earth, the life he had constructed for himself, built carefully up after pain and disaster, was falling apart again.

_To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

Before she left, Tosh approached him about it. Softly and insistently, in that way she had.

"So, Ianto…what are you going to say to him when you get back?"

She could be like that sometimes. She could be straightforward when she wanted to be. Confident. Determined. And (of course) her question was about his returning to work. And Jack. The two things Ianto was trying really hard _not_ to think about tonight. Her timing was uncanny. If he didn't know any better, he would say that she was coordinating with Owen to make sure that they both asked questions when they had the best chance of actually receiving an answer, as well as forcing him to reexamine his own life, and do what they considered 'best for him'. A double-sided assault. Ianto never was one to believe in conspiracy theories, but that was before Torchwood, the secret alien-fighting organization that was financed by the government. And it was eerie how much Tosh and Owen were on the same page lately.

"Excuse me?"

"Ianto, you know exactly what I asked and why. We have to talk about work sometime. As much as I enjoy avoiding the subject-" Realization dawned on her face. "You haven't really though about this at all, have you?"

No not really. In fact, I don't want to think about it, whatever _it_ is, because I don't even really know anymore, and God knows Jack hasn't even acted like I exist, even though I was _shot _two weeks ago. I'm so irritated by now that I'm completely ready to ignore him when I get back, only I don't think that I can.

"I don't know what you mean. By the way, have you come any closer to learning how to communicate with that creature?" It was a half-hearted attempt, and his friend saw through it immediately.

"_Ianto._" Tosh was looking at him insistently. She wasn't going to let him give up.

Ianto looked up, and his face had changed. It was soft, vulnerable. When he spoke, his voice was a stark contrast to his earlier words. Subdued. His eyes lowered and he seemed to slump back down into his seat just a little.

"I don't know Tosh-I just don't know." She waited.

"He just-I don't even know if we have a relationship anymore. Jack-" His voice broke.

"I know you don't believe it Ianto, but he cares about you. And we care about you, and we have **definitely **missed you around the Hub. Believe me on this, please. Jack has been going just as crazy as you these past two weeks. We need you back."

She paused, and reached a hand out to him. He needed to hear this.

"Just come back to Hub Ianto. We really do need you."

Ianto chuckled under his breath, and slapped her hand weakly. "Don't be daft Tosh, of course I'm coming back to work." He grinned faintly. "You people couldn't survive more than two days without me." Ianto chuckled again when Tosh raised her eyebrows at him. "Gwen kept me updated with all the drama of the Hub."

"Gossips." Tosh muttered under her breath.

Ianto snorted, and that began the debate with Tosh about whether or not Welsh people gossiped more than Jack and Owen did.

And so this conversation was why Ianto had still awake two hours later, with thoughts about Jack still spinning around his head. It was very frustrating. Insomnia. It was like the epitome of all his thoughts over the last 14 days had decided to congregate in his head tonight. The night before he went back to work. The fates had an ironic sense of timing.

Ianto did not want to go to the Hub tomorrow. He would like to say that this was because during his two-week absence from work he had experienced a novel-worthy epiphany, and had realized that Torchwood was no longer enough for him, and he had decided to quit and become a picture-perfect contributing citizen of the _sane_ community. In reality, his motives were much more direct (and petty). He didn't want to have to see Jack again.

His internal monologue continued, regardless of his own resolutions that he would stop thinking and go to sleep.

After…_he…_ left, Ianto just felt lost. So much had happened in just a few days. During what Ianto currently thought of as 'the time when Jack was a complete idiot and decided to abandon his loyal team in Cardiff' (followed by several expletives), he stayed nights at the Hub, looking at Rift predictions and old reports. Ianto couldn't bear going back to his flat. He only went back when he had too, or when Owen was keeping a closer eye on him that day, and tried to make him leave the office to get some rest. He didn't like it, but he understood the doctor's concern. He didn't have the strength to fight Owen about it anyway. When he got back, he would curl up in bed, not bothering to change. It was empty, of course. Since Lisa, there hadn't been anyone. At least, there hadn't been anyone that he wanted to waste time thinking about.

For now, he looked out over the empty street at during nights, the black pavement lighting up from the glow of a streetlight. He still had trouble sleeping. There were too many thoughts spinning around in his head, too many anxious doubts and nightmares. Can you imagine what that feels like?

He used to think his life was changing. He wasn't cut out to be alone, and when Jack came into his life…it was like his whole world had been plunged into Technicolor. More than that, what he used to think he had with Jack was like a breath of fresh air. He could at least admit that the man had been refreshing for him. At the very least, Jack had been a friend.

When Ianto came back to the Hub after Jack was gone, trying to work, all he could see was the empty space the man had left in his life. Discovering the betrayal was like being plunged into icy-cold water. It left him breathless. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about how his violent reaction implied that there had been more between them than just a working relationship. If he accepted that, if he grieved because of that, part of him would always hope that the Captain was coming back.

And Jack wasn't coming back.

So there were his options. Not to think about it, or try to deal with another broken heart.

Then there was Torchwood. By the time Ianto was 26, he worked for a secret organization that guarded a Rift in space-time, and he couldn't very well go out to a pub and complain about how his work hours were rubbish. Which they were, but that was beside the point. Ianto was alone. Oh, Torchwood sounded fantastic; a defender of the earth...fights aliens as a job. But in the end, it was the same as every other military-government organization in the UK. There were obligations. Obligations that were to be honored to the death. There were sacrifices. There was blood and horror, and what made it worse than any other military branch were the secrets.

It made some things easier, of course. The public didn't criticize Torchwood, simply because they didn't know about it. But there were **always** downsides to the job. There was always something. Something to lose, something to doubt. There would be something one day that shook you to your core, made you rethink all your preconceived notions about humanity. There were things that made you wonder. There were things that terrified you. And you couldn't connect to the world the same way you had before because of those things. Not only because of the things you'd seen, experienced. You couldn't connect to them because the rest of the world had no idea that things like Daleks and Cybermen could possibly exist. They didn't understand the misery. They didn't know that level of revulsion, of shock.

So Ianto was lonely, if nothing else; and he was committed to the organization. Despite everything he had been through, Ianto didn't want to forget. Torchwood was important. It made a difference in the lives of people. It saved them from a lot of things. It saved people from death, from knowledge. It was hard to remember that sometimes; like when you saw an alien manipulate the emotions of your friends, or when you saw the destruction that resulted in contact with other civilizations, or that the hunger for power and control was interplanetary. Some days, it was impossible to remember that the work you were doing saved lives. And then, of course, he met Jack.

Ianto forced himself to stop there. He didn't want his thoughts to go down that path again. Whenever they did things just got…confusing. He wanted control over his own life. The problem was, Ianto couldn't avoid thinking about it for too long. Because Captain Jack Harkness, in his typical melodramatic fashion, had returned to 21st century Cardiff about 2 months ago.

The first time he saw that familiar RAF coat again, after trying to negotiate the release of hostages with a blowfish, Ianto dropped his gun. Not a good thing, as far as weapons safety was concerned. Owen wouldn't be letting that go any time soon. In fact, because the safety on his gun was still off, it discharged when he dropped it. The bullet slammed into the wall a foot from Owen's head. Owen, of course, looked up, a little incredulous, and then glared at Ianto once he realized that the gunshot had sent his already traumatized patient back into hysterics. Ianto, still somewhat shocked, ignored him, in favor of letting out a loud expletive in a mix of frustration, anger, and disbelief. The rest of the Torchwood team (including Jack) stared at him in astonishment, as it was the first time any of them had heard Ianto curse.

Ianto was only looking at Jack, who was looking pretty flabbergasted. And then he came to a decision. Tosh was the only one who the resolution in his eyes, but everyone else saw how his face closed off to Jack, especially how it hardened as he walked past the captain on his way towards the door.

More than anything, Ianto wanted to come to some sort of conclusion about his own life. He'd had a lot of time to think about it. Ianto didn't sleep much at all anymore, and he was used to it, but he wanted closure. For Ianto, the moment Jack walked back into his life, through the metaphorical door, was the equivalent of a kick to the gut. When Jack came back, he finally knew what he wanted out of life_. _And it was wonderful, _knowing_. He just didn't want to face what it meant for him.

Ianto would always want Jack. That was the truth. He would always want to be by his side, support him, trust him…with everything. He'd already made his decision, and he wanted to stay. Jack was a good man. He'd seen so much; he'd seen things that many people couldn't even imagine, and he was still here, surviving, doing what he could to protect people. Jack had come back, and he taken up the responsibility that so many others would have run away from.

The one day (long in the past now) where Ianto's carefully drawn lines started to blur, was the day the world almost ended. Again. Jack had sacrificed himself, again. One of so many times, Jack had sacrificed himself so that his friends, his family, could live. That day, Ianto wasn't quite so sure of what he was doing anymore. His rules were broken. He'd seen the end of his logical reasoning and his careful justifications. That day, his relationship with Jack transformed into something he didn't understand at all. But it was okay, because as he lost that vital control in his life…. he had started to fall in love.

* * *

_14 days previously - the day Ianto is shot by a mysterious creature; and the team's first field mission since Jack returns from his Doctor_

Jack Harkness was sitting at his desk, pretending to work, when Owen walked in. He looked up vaguely, not really registering who it was; trying to maintain the illusion that he had enough composure to complete the stack of personnel forms on his desk. Yeah right. Jack never did paperwork. Well; he never used to do paperwork. He didn't see the point in it. They were a secret organization for goodness's sake! Shouldn't they be above this sort of thing? That had been his attitude, until a certain Welsh member of the team had joined Torchwood.

Jack couldn't forget. Ever since that damn gunshot had gone off, he couldn't think about anything else. Even now. Especially now.

Normally…he would be there. To berate Jack about the endless stacks of red tape, refuting his long list of complaints. Normally, Ianto would tell him exactly why it had to be done and what it was for, regardless of any excuses. Jack could practically hear his voice in the room, telling him off. Those beautiful Welsh vowels, sharp in irritation. Jack would give anything to hear his voice again. Alive. Safe. Unendingly irritated at Jack. You'd damn well better have that sent into UNIT by tomorrow morning…sir." Always polite. If the team only knew.

Ianto was the only one who actually argued with him. It was brilliant. He would stand in Jack's office, looking gorgeous, as usual, and give at least three good reasons why Jack shouldn't just set fire to his desk, or field every phone call from UNIT to Torchwood's unofficial answering machine. Jack couldn't really be angry with him. He was just giddy with amusement. He was happy, exchanging lighthearted banter with Ianto, watching him get more and more worked up trying to convince Jack to act diplomatic. It wasn't a serious argument. They both knew that there was no way Jack could or would act professional. It was impossibility.

But right _then_, when he was watching Ianto trying to convince him of the merits of a proper filing system, alternating between exasperated and sarcastic comments, and mischievous determination….Jack would do it. Even though he hated paperwork; by the next morning every form would be filled out to the letter. Even though Jack would rather deal with Owen than try to talk to a UNIT General; he would make the call.

And this was all because of Ianto's arguments for doing it, of course. It was because Ianto had some very valid points about the official running of Torchwood, about the system and so on. Not because Jack's will buckled under the man's radiant smile. Not because Jack would have followed Ianto into Hell if he had asked that of him. Not because every time he heard Ianto's striking voice, his breathing sped up just a little. Ianto, of course, had no clue. _I swear sometimes that man can be completely oblivious. _

After that Jack's thoughts drifted into R-rated territory. He hadn't so much as kissed Ianto since he had returned, and although right now he was much more concerned about the man's well-being, _that_ kind of frustration was also slowly driving Jack insane.

Jack was distracted enough that he couldn't get any work done. Right now, he was alternating between pacing his office and incessantly asking Owen questions about Ianto's condition. And of course, he was also constantly hovering around the autopsy bay, and Ianto, before the doctor noticed, and yelled at him for the umpteenth time for not giving Ianto enough space.

When Owen walked in, looking up at Jack for the first time all morning, and he froze. He halted at the doorway in shock. What the hell was going on? He looked around the office cautiously. Had he accidentally slipped into an alternate dimension? It wasn't unheard of at Torchwood. His eyebrows furrowed. Jack hadn't even noticed him coming in. He was still sitting at his desk, looking absently at the computer screen. And his office was actually somewhat neat. That was just wrong.

Usually, Jack whirled in like a tornado, bringing personality to a room. Now, as he walked in, it was like Jack wasn't even there.

Okay, that was the last straw. Owen couldn't take any more of this shit. He had indulged Jack for long enough. He snapped. "Jack!"

"Huh?" Jack looked up, still not really registering his presence. His eyes focused suddenly. "Owen? What is it?"

Owen gazed at him incredulously. "Okay. That is **it**. You have been sulking in here all day, and it is driving me up the damn wall. Snap out of it man! You are supposed to be the leader of this organization, not that you've been acting like it lately."

"Owen, I-"

"No. Just…no. Shut up."

Jack stared at him, open mouthed.

Owen stared at him defiantly, continuing with his building rant. "You scamper off to god-knows-where; okay, fine, whatever. You had some world-saving thing to do. We all understand that. We, as a team, can let that go, even if you've been the customary secretive bastard you usually are, and decided to drag an old ex-boyfriend into the mix to top things off. By the way, just for the record, 'Captain John Hart' is even more of an idiot than you are."

Jack started to open his mouth in protest. Owen cut him off again. "No. I'm not done." He leaned over the desk, taking a deep breath and starting again, more seriously. When Owen paused, his eyes were haunted. Honest. "Ianto worked himself near to death." Jack looked right back at him, suddenly sharply alert and anxious. Owen spoke again hastily. "I know you've been thinking about him. We all have. Not just you. It's not always about you and him. We care about him too."

He stood up suddenly, tense. "Jack, you didn't see him." Owen had started to pace around the office. "You didn't see the look on his face when we came back, and you were just gone. He didn't understand. No-one understood; but he was honestly hurt. We were furious, and he just stood there silently and made another round of coffee. We didn't notice."

Owen noticed the look on Jack's face, and paused, trying to wave off his concern. "It's a long story."

Jack stood up, the whole line of his body tight with anger. "Does it look like I care Owen?" he hissed out. Jack's next words just sounded lost. "What happened?"

Owen sat down. "It's not something you need to hear from me, Jack. Ianto was…well, he was really torn up when you left. What needed to happen was very different from what actually happened. What Ianto needed." Owen glanced up at Jack again. He looked like he was in pain. At that moment, the doctor realized that this was something they needed to talk about. Ianto needed to let Jack in.

"You need to talk to him." Owen had worry in his eyes. He sighed, and looked at Jack fiercely, trying to convey the significance of what he was about to say. It was important. "Look, Jack; what you need to understand here, is that we don't really care where you've been. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you weren't here. I don't understand what's going on between you two, and I don't have to like it; but I respect it. So long as you can respect him."

Jack wasn't looking at him. He was staring thoughtfully into space, trying to process the information that had just hit him in between the eyes. Good. Jack needed some sense knocked into him. Owen turned to leave, and Jack seemed to jolt back to his senses. He spoke, quickly, just as Owen reached to door.

"So, did you come in here just to verbally abuse me?" It had a playful tone to it, but his heart wasn't really in the flirting, meaningless as it may have been. Owen turned around. "No, actually."

He received an expectant look in return, a little afraid of the news.

"I came to tell you that Ianto is awake." Owen's voice took on a professional tone with his next words, almost caring. "He's going to be fine."

If Jack hadn't been sitting down, his knees would have given out in relief. As it was, he tried to maintain a professional image, despite the part of him that wanted to collapse. Ianto had woken up. All Jack wanted to do, as a person…as a lover; was to run down to the autopsy bay and spend the next few hours making absolutely certain that Ianto was really alive. Jack exhaled heavily as Owen left, whispering, "Thank god." All he could think about right now was that Ianto was going to be okay. He would be fine. He's safe.

When Owen left Jack's office, he was still pissed off. He stalked down towards the autopsy bay, determined to do whatever it was he needed to do to wrap up this field mission as easily as possible. He was thinking about consulting Tosh about their next move to contain this centaur creature, when he saw Ianto attempting to sit up again out of the corner of his eye. And Owen knew exactly what his first job was going to be.

* * *

_20 minutes later, in the conference room-_

About 5 minutes previously, Gwen, Tosh and Ianto had gotten an email for a team meeting. They walked in to see Owen standing at the head of the table, looking decided about something. Tosh steeled herself. That was never a good thing.

"Okay people, I've called this meeting for a number of reasons. As you've no doubt noticed, Jack isn't here. Now, professionally, I'd have to say that this is because he's tied up with something unavoidable and can't make this meeting. Unofficially, and with all due respect, he's not here because I don't want him here."

Ianto piped up, his vowels becoming more pronounced in amusement. "So basically, we're having a secret meeting." Gwen snorted into her coffee and Owen glared. "You be quiet. You've been enough trouble for one day."

Ianto opened his mouth to protest, and Owen hastily cut him off. "Shddzt! No. I don't need any more of your snarky commentary. I've already told you, _several times,_ that you are going home just as soon as I can call a cab. No, you cannot stay here, you can't make coffee, you're not allowed to feed Myfanwy, and you will stay in that chair until I tell you that you can move."

Tosh beamed secretly. She had been trying to get Ianto to go home all day. You would think that the man would understand the seriousness of being _shot_, but he could be bloody stubborn at times. He had been sneaking around the Hub for hours, trying to file or do some other form of work, when he really needed to be recovering. Tosh was reasonably sure Ianto had also put a lot of energy into avoiding Jack too; although it wasn't all that hard, given that the Captain had been hiding in his office for hours. Maybe they would both listen to Owen.

Tosh missed Jack's presence in the Hub. Usually he would pout in the face of the doctor's rant. Ianto just scowled and huffed back into his seat. That was pretty entertaining too, although all Tosh could feel right now was the sharp absence of the comments that usually would have been exchanged between Ianto and Jack. They were so good together. Right now, Tosh was ready to deck them both, just to knock some sense into them.

Tosh spoke up. "Despite my inhibitions in saying this, Ianto…Owen is right. You need to go home. We're going to do a really brief mission analysis, and then you're going to get some rest and recuperation. You should recover." Tosh smiled at him weakly. She knew that there wasn't a lot she could say to make Ianto feel any better. He would have trouble with nothing to do. He loved working. It was really weird at times, but Ianto absolutely loved coming into the Hub and doing honest work. He liked his job. It was a balance. For every bad day at Torchwood, there was maybe a good hour. Having nothing to do for the next two weeks would drive Ianto stir-crazy.

Gwen was starting to appear exasperated with the whole situation. "Can we get back to the point please? We have a rogue alien on the loose."

"Alright, alright! Geez, put you people in a room together and look what happens. Okay."

Owen pulled up files he had managed to recover from Torchwood One's archives.

"These are the files I managed to recover from Torchwood One's archives. As most of us already know, Yvonne Hartman was an obsessive fanatical psychopath… but Torchwood One did keep rather good records on alien technology and other creatures. Regardless of their _methods_ for doing so." Owen spat the words out.

"I scanned that box that fell through the Rift two days ago, and put the records into the computer. We got one match. This data linked us to the records of Ianto's mission almost two years ago; but so far, our greatest source of information is what he can tell us."

Ianto felt the stares of the others turn to focus on him. "Yeah….fine, okay." He took a deep breath. So far, he had managed to shut out the few years of he spent living in London. He had absolutely no desire to remember working at Torchwood One. He had let that part of his life go all too easily.

After almost dying at the hands of the woman he still loved; all of which came down to the things Torchwood One had done, Ianto started to shift his perspective in life. He had committed treason, and though he didn't face the situation through that perspective, he had still paid for it. Ianto was born in Cardiff, but after everything that had happened, after Lisa; Ianto started to make his home there too.

Ianto had been there, at the battlefront. The Battle of Canary Wharf ended in the deaths of over five hundred people. If Yvonne Hartman could do so much damage, working for what she believed was a great cause…Ianto believed that Captain Jack Harkness could do just as much good on the front lines of Wales.

The horror of his past was still fresh in his mind some days. The blood. The word "exterminate" would always terrify him. That was what trauma did to you. He wouldn't forget.

He heaved a breath again, and tried to compose himself, looking up at the faces in the conference room. The memories had come flooding back last night, as he relived the disastrous mission that had eliminated many of colleagues and friends. He cared about the Torchwood Three team just as much as the Torchwood One team. He had been terrified for them. Tosh, Owen, Gwen. Those doors were opening in his mind again, giving way to nightmares. Right. He was needed here; now. They had to prevent this from happening again.

"Right. So, that mission, as Owen said, was about two years ago. We didn't know a lot about this creature at Torchwood One. It was a very brief mission. A few days prior to our encounter with this creature, we uncovered an artifact buried about an hour away from where we saw the creature. As far as I can tell, they're kind of like intergalactic mercenaries. For hire, to do whatever it is that a civilization needs done. They travel with much more ease than we do, through parallel dimensions and space. Even time. We weren't sure how."

"There's a very low level of physic ability. Mostly they just encourage secrecy and discretion, moving in and out of time and place with minimal damage. But they're pretty dangerous. Very strong, intelligent, and many have individual specialties. A day after we encountered the creature, we found the recovered artifact missing from its slot in the Archives. No signal, no warning, nothing. It was just gone. That's all the information we had."

Ianto turned a little thoughtful. "It was strange though. I got the feeling that there was something more to the situation. This creature murdered three team members for no reason. It could have killed all of us within minutes. It definitely had the element of surprise."

His eyes were serious as he asked the next question, and his voice was subdued. "What could it have possibly gained from that?"

* * *

By the time the team was hungry enough that they deemed it necessary to order pizza, Jack was 98% certain that Ianto was avoiding him. He hadn't entered into Jack's office all day, which also subsequently meant no coffee refills. Whenever Jack hesitantly tried to broach the subject with the team, they all redirected the conversation; and it usually ended in "What? You're complaining because you haven't had coffee all day? Get it yourself." At least, that was what Owen said, along with a few meaningful hand gestures that weren't strictly polite. Tosh just looked at him for a few seconds, rolled her eyes, and went back to her computer. On the other hand Gwen stared at him like he was an idiot, and then said a few choice phrases loudly in Welsh. The one other Welshman, who was sitting at his desk a few yards away, examining an artifact, snorted. Jack decided that he was better off not knowing.

The briefing had gone well, depending on who you asked. The leader of Torchwood Three, Jack, was the only one who hadn't actually been there, and was also the only one who would have said it had gone well. Mostly just because everyone else was being extremely pessimistic about the case. Jack supposed they had a right to that attitude. They had been throwing ideas back and forth for the last hour, basically going around in circles because they didn't have enough information.

On top of that, Gwen was concerned about Ianto over-extending himself, and Owen wasn't really concerned about Ianto over-extending himself, but was still trying to prevent Ianto from doing anything that might reflect on Owen's skills as Torchwood's only medical officer. Both the archivist and doctor jumped at this opportunity to release their pent up annoyance and aggression, and because of this, the slow process of deciding what to do next about the unknown alien was interspersed with childish bickering. Also, predictably, Ianto ended up over-extending himself.

Tosh was doing her best to try and keep things under control. Although it would be a first if the team managed to _focus_.

But Ianto…The problem was that the team _needed_ Ianto, especially for this mission. Owen had finally relented and given him some leeway to work, after a lengthy discussion on why Ianto should never get shot again, what he would be doing to make up for getting shot, and why he was going to be staying home as he recovered and not doing any strenuous activity because he had been shot. Before the last syllable had left Owen's mouth, Ianto was off like a shot, doing research.

The Archives were like quicksand. They sucked you in. Ianto found all of it fascinating. He could spend hours in the dusty filing rooms, reading old reports, connecting similar situations, uncovering ideas. Tosh had asked him about it once…What did he find so interesting? Ianto had launched into an explanation of how the Archives were practically alive. He'd described it in such enthusiastic detail that it was impossible not to understand what Ianto loved about the Archives. They were old, so old, but that just meant that there were so many wonderful and terrible things hidden down there. There were secrets to be uncovered. History.

One day, Ianto had found an unknown artifact buried in the corner of the farthest room. He'd spent hours working on it, just trying to figure out what it was. There were no records. In the end, he'd discovered that it had been a music box. A telepathic music box. Ianto had been digging around one day, the box sitting somewhat forgotten on the counter, and it had started playing a symphony. Beautiful, unearthly music.

Because Ianto knew the Archives much better than anyone else, he was the one who tried to find some reference to the alien creature, or its technology. After that, Ianto spent practically two hours staring at the artifact that had come through the Rift. The 'it-might-be-a-weapon' one.

It was a burnished silver, and wouldn't have looked out of place in a modern art museum. Ianto had been turning it over in his hands all afternoon, comparing the workmanship of the box to the strange weapon he had seen the creature carrying. He felt responsible for what happened, and was attached to the idea that he had the best chance of figuring out what the old artifact did. He was probably right, but that didn't mean the rest of the team had to like it. Ianto would have stayed up all night, trying to solve the puzzle that was this new artifact, but at 3:00 that afternoon, after much pestering from Owen, Tosh, and Gwen (respectively) he had finally gone home. It was the start of what would hopefully be his two-week recovery. The collective thought on everyone's mind was _'Thank God.' _Ianto left with the distinct thought that the mission was not over yet. He would figure this out if it killed him.

Tosh, Gwen and Owen had been working on Ianto for hours, trying to get him to go back to his flat. Ianto, of course was all for staying, and working on his new project obsessively. Tosh couldn't help but thinking that Jack would've understood Ianto a lot better than they previous times, she had selectively ignored the relationship between the two. It was blatantly obvious to her, but she wasn't the type to interfere. But today, all she could think about was their relationship.

_Jack would've been able to get Ianto home. And the next day, he would have come to work in a _very _satisfied mood. I don't get how the rest of them never noticed those little touches during the day, or how Ianto still smiles every time he sees Jack walk into the room. And of course, there's all the missing CCTV footage. I don't even want to think about that._

After Tosh drifted out of the Hub, and Owen bolted at exactly 5:00, almost everyone was gone. Jack was still at the Hub when Gwen left, about an hour later. He locked up, and shut down the computers, and activated the security system. Normally, he wouldn't have to take care of all those closing procedures. He tried not to think about it. But that night, Jack went to bed alone.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Beep Beep Beep Be— **_Ianto slammed his hand down on the obscene noise coming from his left. Mercifully, it halted in mid-beep. He really had to get a new alarm clock. The sunlight was streaming through the window, cutting across his face. He saw the light before he opened his eyes, and flipped over in his bed, groaning into his pillow. _I do not want to go to work today. Maybe I could just stay in bed. _Ianto flipped over again, glancing at the clock. 5:45 am. _Damn it all! I forgot how early I usually have to get up. _Today of all days, he didn't want to arrive at the office early. He'd be there before anyone else…except for Jack.

He turned over, pulling the covers over his head, and tried to justify staying in bed. _This is ridiculous. If you don't get up, you know Jack will just overreact and come bursting in here. Probably tracking mud all over my clean floor. What am I supposed to say to him then?_

Ianto didn't want to think about it. He crawled out of bed slowly, wincing at the cold air that breezed over his slim frame, as he left the safety of his warm comforter. _Shower._

Ianto sat in his car for a half hour, trying to work up the nerve to switch on the ignition. Finally, he got to work without great incident. He approached the tourist office hesitantly, and once he deemed it all clear, made his way down to the Hub, giving a sigh of relief. Jack was in his office. Tosh was there too, Thank God. She might've even gotten here early on purpose, to make sure he wasn't alone with Jack. He didn't really care either way. He would have to remember to thank her profusely later. He went straight over to her desk.

"So, any news on this centaur case?"

She smiled at him gently, a knowing look in her eye. Tosh was the type of person who noticed everything, especially things about people. But then she would do everything she could to make the situation easier for everyone. She graciously ignored his obvious distraction, and continued the conversation. Ianto loved her sometimes, he really did. She might've even gotten here early to make sure he wasn't alone with Jack.

"Not really. It's a cold case now, which is a disappointment. I was looking forward to learning more about that artifact." She frowned and refocused on her computer. "Actually, ever since you were injured, there hasn't been a flicker of Rift activity." She turned to face him again. "What do you think?"

"I'm starting to hate this case. I couldn't get anything out of that artifact over two weeks. I took it back to my flat, but there hasn't even been a glimmer of a clue. I think the best thing we can do is to focus on the creature. Maybe you could make a virtual model of it? That might help with identification. We could run the image through a comparison with the Archives."

Tosh and Ianto had been collaborating on this project for a while, and although it was proving to be increasingly frustrating, they weren't willing to give it up. There were just too many loose ends. What did these creatures want?

That day was completely silent. No rift activity. At all. It was starting to get a little scary actually. But still, they sometimes had quiet days. Rarely. He went home that night a little disappointed in the lack of action. He needed to be in the field again, especially after two weeks of medical leave.

Ianto's second day back was a lot more exciting.

Jack was fine. He tried to assess the situation he was in, in order to figure out just how fine he was. In his job, positive thinking was all well and good, but it didn't really make you anything besides optimistic or, more likely than not, dead. You had to figure out where the line was between alive and optimistic, and not quite so alive nor quite so optimistic.

Jack had been trying to figure out what was going on ever since this morning, when he had been knocked out while walking across the Plass. He had been out of sorts for hours, completely confused. He'd woken up in a dark, empty room that looked frighteningly familiar. So, at a guess, he had been kidnapped by a few aliens who were holding him captive in order to control Torchwood. He was fine, really. He could spend a few hours in captivity. He still wasn't fully conscious when his kidnappers came in and started to talk in a harsh language that Jack didn't recognize. He was really, really fine.

It was when Jack remembered the aliens that he decided self-delusion was no longer going to work. They were the creatures from the cold case the team had abandoned weeks ago. And they also happened to be the creatures who they had decided had an almost limitless supply of power, and were the most efficient assassins you could possibly hire. They looked kind of like centaurs. Jack groaned softly. Their reappearance now meant that they were also quite good at disappearing when they wanted too. They still want something from Torchwood; and are quite prepared to go to any lengths to get it.

Okay. Don't panic. What he could believe was that the team would come for him. Eventually, Ianto would come. He would be fine.

Everyday, Ianto Jones is the first person in the Hub. His long absence has not eradicated that habit. Usually he'll be down in the archives when the rest of the team drifts in, and then bring up coffee as they start working. Today, when the sirens go off, signaling the arrival of Tosh, Gwen and Owen, Ianto is at Tosh's desk, typing furiously at the keyboard. They all stare at him in shock for a second.

Firstly, no-one touches Tosh's computer. No-one. Not even Ianto. No-one. The last time that had happened, Tosh's hidden anti-hacking programs had brought the whole Torchwood system crashing down around the UNIT commander's ears. Thus, lockdown, and locked out. Tosh was the only one who could control it, so she took the opportunity to lecture them all on why no-one should ever touch her computer. Then, she reversed the lockdown and called the UNIT general in order to successfully scare him off so much even looking at Torchwood's computer system again. The team stuck around to watch her ream him out in front of his superiors.

Secondly, Ianto looks like he has just discovered that someone set off a bomb in his archives, and is busy hiring an assassin who will kill them quickly and efficiently.

Gwen spoke up hesitantly. "Ianto? What are you doing?"

His reply makes all freeze in shock. "Jack is missing."

Gwen is the first one to speak after the startling revelation. When she does, she isn't at a loss for words. Betrayal flashes across her face. "That _bastard_."

Ianto, surprisingly, cuts her off, coming to Jack's defense. "No! He wouldn't do that to us again. He came back. Something's happened to him." His last few words are whispered in terror, as if, even though he is convinced of the truth, he would rather Jack have left again than be in danger. Everyone hears the next words he whispers to himself, though they're not meant too. Ianto doesn't even realize he's spoken. "He wouldn't leave me again."

The whole scene pauses, and regret fills the room. Gwen wishes she hadn't heard him. Tosh curses Jack in her head, and mentally threatens him with death if he really has left with the Doctor again. Owen asks the question they are all thinking. "How do you know he's missing?"

Ianto ignores him. "Got it."

Tosh runs up to him, and finds herself looking at the CCTV footage that went missing around 11:00 last night. Ianto has spent all morning trying to recover it. Gwen's anger transforms to fear as the team watches Jack being subdued and wrestled into an unobtrusive SUV. Ianto shuts off the video feed when the car starts to skid away from the curb.

They all work for the rest of the afternoon, trying to locate Jack. At 11:00pm, they try to accept the fact that they will not find him today. But although Owen tries to persuade him otherwise, Ianto refuses to go home.

He stays up until 5:17am, keeping track of the time via the glowing numbers on his computer screen, but then falls asleep at his desk. He has been working feverishly for 22 hours without pause, and this is how the team finds him as they arrive early the next morning. Slumped over his desk with a new program running on the computer screen, cross-referencing CCTV cameras, news station reports, police scanners, and everything he found out about the SUV.

"He looks tired."

"Well of course he looks tired Gwen. He stayed up all night trying to track down bloody Harkness. The damn idiot."

"This is hurting him. Jack's not even here and he's still hurting Ianto." Tosh looked at him and paused again in concern.

"It's like he's trying to make up for it. For the time when Jack really disappeared. He felt so helpless then. He couldn't do anything."

"Should we wake him up?"

"Oh go on, you might as well. Just warning you now though, he'll feel inconsolably guilty for falling asleep, and he'll be insufferable all day. Plus he'll be extra moody because Jack's gone and managed to get himself f***ing kidnapped."

"It's not his fault. He should know that by now. We'll find him."

"Ianto? Ianto!"

Gwen reached down to shake him awake. He looked so peaceful sleeping. She didn't really want to wake him up, but if she didn't, he would never forgive himself. At least he had gotten some rest. As soon as he was up he was going to want to work.

"Ianto?"

"Hnmmmnn?" Ianto shifted in his sleep and his eyes drifted open. Realization dawned on him abruptly, and he bolted up from his seat. He looked around to the computer, and pulled up something. Gwen called to him in Welsh and he answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Um, in English please Tea boy? We all know you're not going to listen to the many sensible protests against working that are about to come your way, so let's have it. What have you been doing?"

"What do you think I've been doing? Looking for Jack. Brilliant! There's an empty warehouse on the edge of Penarth where the man who stole the SUV dropped off Jack. They may have moved him from there, but it's our best lead so far." He sprinted down to the weapons locker, and Owen yelled after him as he entered the 20-digit password from memory. "Ianto! What are you doing?"

He comes out of the small room with two handguns and ammunition. The look on his face is terrifying. He is coldly determined, anger radiating from him like an aura. As he loads the guns and checks the safety, he replies to Owen in a downright scary tone. No-one will contest his next statement. "I'm going after him."

They chain him up. Before the year that never was, this would have been ideal subject matter for a lot of inappropriate jokes. Now, almost instantly, Jack is back on the Valiant. He hasn't set foot there for over six months, or two years, depending on how you counted. As far as he is concerned, he will never serve Torchwood or UNIT on that ship again. Still, as soon as they haul him up by his wrists, the cold metal biting into his hands again, all the memories of that year come flooding back. The trauma...and the torture. He can't help it. He is sucked into the place that he has sworn to himself that he will never return too.

When he was aboard the Valiant, the only thing that kept him from going insane was to shut it all out. This is what he does now, entering into a place of white peacefulness, thinking of his old life when he gets too desperate. But what scares him the most is that in the dark, in the cold, he can't tell whether he really is aboard the Valiant or not. He can't know for certain that his captor is not the Master. And he can't remember whether is team is dead or alive.

It is a voice that finally pulls Jack out of it. A familiar voice. His voice. Jack's lips open in silent prayer in the form of a name. "Ianto" he sighs. It is the voice that, during that year, he never thought he would hear again. He can't tell if the beautiful Welsh accent is real or not, but Jack smiles through his pain anyway. Ianto is here. It was okay. He will always be with Jack, supporting him through the torture. His voice sounds again, and Jack becomes a little more aware of his surroundings. The voice sounds terrified.

"Jack! Jack! Come on, please. What's wrong Cariad? Oh please, Jack...Owen, what have they done to him?" There was a sob, and suddenly Jack feels gentle hands on his face, worriedly tracing his jaw line and temples.

Another voice, this one frantic. "I don't know Ianto, I just don't know! Medically he's fine- a little stressed, sweating, elevated heart rate-"

Jack groaned as he was slowly dragged back into the living world. He could feel the soreness in his body now. Only the soothing touches to his face kept him from spiraling back into a panic attack at the familiar ache in his shoulders.

"Jack, talk to me please, what's wrong Cariad?"

He opened his eyes.

A concerned blue gaze was all he saw for a moment. Wide eyes staring right back at him in anxiety. There was busy movement in the background, but for now, all he wanted to see was those eyes.

"Yan" he breathed. Jack winced at how hoarse his voice was. He tried to speak again, and all that came out was a puff of air. Ianto's face was creased in stress and pain.

"You were yelling Cariad. Screaming when we found you. You yelled yourself hoarse." His voice sounds broken now.

Ianto looked tired. For the first time, Jack noticed the dark bags under his eyes. They hadn't been there before. With some astonishment, Jack realized he was shaking, still chained to an empty doorway.

"For God's sake!" It was an exclamation of disbelief and anger. "We've got to get him out of here Owen, please." Ianto's voice transformed, pleading.

"I'm doing the best I can!" Owen took a deep breath. "Okay, I think I can get him out."

The next thing Jack felt was a pressure on his wrists, and suddenly he was dropping down a few inches to the floor. His knees buckled beneath him, and Ianto, standing less than a foot away, caught him before he hit the floor and gently lowered them to the ground. He was vaguely aware of collapsing into Ianto's arms, and shushing noises in his ear, calming his violent trembling. He was holding Ianto so tightly that it strained his arms.

When he was determined, Ianto was a force of nature. The team had barely closed the doors to the SUV when Ianto floored it. He would have gone after Jack by himself, but at least he had seen the advantage of having more than one person on the mission. And no-one was going to let him go alone.

Ianto practically kicked the door off its hinges when they finally tracked down the supposedly empty warehouse. Inside, Jack was hanging from shackles secured to an empty doorway. He looked like he was unconscious. He was screaming…. Before his captors could do anything to stop the sudden intrusion, Ianto shot them.

Three gunshots fired in quick succession, and it was all over. Gwen lowered her own gun weakly, a little shell-shocked by the scarily efficient murders. Ianto abandoned his own gun and sprinted over to Jack. Owen hesitated for a second, and then followed quickly. Tosh was still standing by the doorway, running her scanner over the room. She didn't know what had happened here, but she was going to get to the bottom of it. After she was done with her scans, she made an effort to check the vitals of the alien kidnappers. There wasn't much to check. They were all, quite obviously, dead. All shots to the head. Her examinations were interrupted by an incomprehensible statement from Owen. He was talking to Ianto. They had managed to get Jack down from the chains and now Ianto was supporting him to the floor, trying to calm him down. Owen was stunned when he made the concise diagnosis.

"He's in shock."

Ianto looked up angrily at Owen. "And what do we _do_ about it?"

Owen came to his senses quickly and knelt down beside Jack and Ianto, patting Jack's back and trying to bring him out of it. He would face his confusion about Jack's condition later. Right now, the man was a patient.

"This isn't working. Ianto, you need to try to calm him down." His words were tinged with desperation.

"Jack? I know you can hear me Cariad. We need you back here. I need you. Okay? Come on." Ianto's hushed statements became increasingly hysterical as he continued to caress Jack's back and shoulders. "It's not working, Owen! What else can I do?" Ianto looked up at the doctor, scared.

Owen looked like he was at a loss. Jack and Ianto were panicking. They needed something, now. He stood up hastily, taking a few paces around the room. Suddenly, he stopped.

"Kiss him."

Ianto looked like he had just been slapped. "What?"

"Just...do it!"

Ianto spared a second to look at Owen in disbelief, and then turned towards Jack. He lifted Jack's chin gently, and hesitated. Then he determinedly pressed a kiss to his lips. He moved his lips with Jack's intently, and though it was slowly, he gradually calmed down. It was graceful to see.

Eventually, Jack stopped shaking and started to weave his hands through Ianto's hair. The kiss deepened, and Jack pulled Ianto closer, wrapping one arm around his back and shoulders. Jack's other hand made it's way through Ianto's hair and gripped the back of his neck. He tilted his head slightly.

Owen drew the line there, and coughed loudly. When Ianto sprang away from Jack, with some definite effort on his part, he was panting heavily. He scrambled to his feet. Tosh and Gwen were both staring at him, and Owen was pointedly looking in the other direction. Ianto flushed. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He was at a total loss for words.

He turned to face Jack, who was grinning at him. He was also looking up and down Ianto like he wanted to drag him into the next room and pick up where they had left off.

Ianto blushed wildly again. His expression was flitting between angry, embarrassed, and upset. He ran his hands through his hair, startled when he realized how mussed it was by Jack's ministrations.

"I-I can't." He ran his hand through his hair again and then pointed at Jack vaguely, looking in the other direction. "You- You should get checked out by Owen." He practically ran out of the room.

Jack's smile faded, and he started to get to his feet, more than ready to go after Ianto and say something. Anything. Tosh halted him with a gesture, looking at him sternly. "I'll talk to him." She left.

Jack was left dismayed, with Owen and Gwen looking on, all in the midst of the carnage.

When Tosh went after Ianto, she was unsure. That was the only word to describe what she was feeling. Everyone knew that she was probably the best person available to go after Ianto right now, but she didn't know any more about him than the rest of the team. He was a mystery to her. Still, she loved him like a brother. She knew him as well as she could. They took turns protecting each other. Also, he was the only one who had been working at Torchwood for just as long as she had.

Tosh wouldn't have been able to tell anyone how _he_ was feeling at the moment; even if she felt like answering what she was sure would be a flood of questions from Gwen. Ianto was standing with his back to her, still and silent and frozen. He tensed as she watched him, though, and she approached him slowly.

She touched his shoulder and he jumped, and as he turned around, she could see that he was crying. Soft tears like rain, ones that Ianto didn't want to shed over Jack, but would still help. She drew him into a hug, like he had done for her so many times before, and she could feel him shaking in her embrace. When he spoke, finally, after almost ten minutes, she still didn't know what he would say.

"I kissed him. I called him _Cariad_." Ianto's accent was even thicker with his tears.

Now she could tell. It didn't matter. This was bad.

"It's okay Ianto, it's okay. It'll work out in the end."

"I don't even know what he wants from me anymore. I can't tell if I love him or not. I can't tell how much he's changed."

"What makes you think he's changed?" She asked gently.

He looked up at her, still shaky, honesty shining through his voice.

"When I look at him, I can just…tell. His eyes aren't the same. He's a different man. Something happened, and he won't tell us **what. **He doesn't…he won't…he's _changed._"

He turned his face into her shoulder again, lost. "I used to know him…I don't…I think I still…" Ianto broke down in her arms again, crying. And Tosh just continued to shush him, holding him as his tears ran down her hair. By the time they both walked back to the team, Ianto was once again still and silent.

The drive back to the Hub was awkward and silent. The _walk_ back to the Hub when the SUV mysteriously ran out of gas, however, was muddy, wet, and downright miserable. When the proximity alarms finally sounded, everyone gave a sigh of relief. Five minutes later, Gwen was wringing her hair out over a trashcan.

"Never again. Never ever **ever **again. The next time you get kidnapped, someone else can rescue you."

"Look, it wasn't _my _fault the SUV ran out of gas, okay? I'm sorry."

Ianto, who was now making his way towards the showers, stripping off his ruined suit coat along the way, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Yes, it bloody well was."

Owen was not so subtle. "You should be sorry, you _fucking_ idiot!" Jack flinched. He had a feeling that he would be getting a dressing down from Owen, and not just based on the five mile walk through Welsh rain. Owen stalked over to him, pointing an accusing finger at his chest and cutting his eyes at Jack. "You come back from some mysterious disappearance, drag some pathological liar from your past to Cardiff, and then get _kidnapped_ by an unknown species of alien." Owen seemed to be at a loss of what to say next. Apparently he found the whole situation so infuriating that he couldn't put Jack's stupidity into words. He stripped off his jack and opened his mouth a few times before finally landing on something he could say. "The next time you get into trouble, _I _am not dragging you out of it." He then proceeded to disappear towards the showers, all the while muttering under his breath.

Jack sighed. He knew that this would come up in some form or another. Owen knew that he had been sent into shock by something that had happened during the kidnapping. And Owen knew that he had been in a very bad state when the team had arrived on the scene. And Owen was not going to let it go if it had any chance of endangering anyone employed by Torchwood Three. Well, he'd face that when it came up again. For now, they all had another problem on their hands. He turned to their resident technological genius and practically begged her for some answers.

"Tosh. Do you have _any_ idea what's been going on during the past 48 hours?"

Tosh glanced at him briefly from her computer, and then grinned.

"Yes. I actually do have an idea."


	7. Chapter 7

AA team meeting had been called in the conference room. This time, it was all business. Everyone was a little shaken up over what happened, even though not all of them showed it. Jack was the most affected.

After the year that never was, Jack had been determined to resume his old life. The life he _wanted_. He wanted to defend the earth, to fight for the Doctor. He was a soldier at heart and in the course of waiting for his hero to return for him, Jack had inadvertently gained a life that suited him to the letter.

After waiting almost a hundred years for closure, and then finally finding it, all Jack wanted to do was return to Earth. To _Cardiff_. He had only realized how much he had changed when the Doctor started teasing him about someone who could tie down the great Jack Harkness. He wasn't the same man who had met the Doctor in the 1900's. It surprised him.

And then there was that whole 'tying down' thing. He'd made some inane joke about bondage, but his heart wasn't really in it. The Doctor was distracted. He didn't notice. Of course not. All Jack could think was…_Ianto_. It was like the man had found someway to get into his head. There was this light, and Jack could see Ianto's eyes. He could smell Ianto, remember him with a startling clarity. Sharp cinnamon. Suddenly there was a sharp ache in Jack's gut. He _missed _Ianto. So much. He had to get home.

Home. He had a job there. His work was there. His… the only people he had even gotten remotely close to in the past 500 years, and he couldn't even call them his friends…but they were his family. He wanted them to know that, he wanted them to look at him that way too. Home. The Hub. Ianto.

But when he got there, things were different. His team didn't trust him anymore. They knew he had secrets. He had forgotten how secretive he actually was. He didn't see the reason for it now. And Ianto was…well…not overjoyed to see him.

Since the year that never was, Jack had perpetually stayed in what Gwen called "dangerous alien mission mode". Jack was essentially a leader. That was how he acted when he was on a mission, and the part of him that was a leader was the dominant side. Always. It _had_ to be that way… or people would get hurt.

Now… just between Jack and Ianto… they were coldly professional all the time. They focused on the mission at hand, delegating through the rest of the team when they _had_ to talk to each other. It was painfully obvious why. Ianto had set the terms of their relationship for now, and Jack was too confused to think of anything to do about it immediately. Before, he wouldn't have even noticed Ianto's newfound independence. But it was hard not to miss the waves of indifference coming off Ianto in every interaction he had with Jack. There was warmth there, with the rest of the team. Not with him.

Ianto was much better at professionalism than Jack.

Jack had never realized how cold Ianto could be to people he didn't like. He had perfected his icy mask after 15 years of practice. Jack would never take Ianto's rare smiles for granted anymore. During missions, all he could think about were the silences where their wonderfully unprofessional banter used to be. He did his best, of course. There wasn't really another option, but Ianto was the one who effortlessly 'carried on'. Not him.

Jack was left with nothing. Memories that had scarred him even more, ones that could only be added to his already endless cache of things he wanted to forget. A lover who wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. A team that didn't trust him. He came back determined to follow through with the life he had been building, and all he found was endless confusion about his resolve to _settle down_ this time.

Jack was in the conference room, waiting for the others. He'd climbed up the staircase wearily, every step a depletion of his energy. After everything that day, he'd barely been able to hold himself up long enough to drop into his seat and close his eyes in exhaustion. He was tired. So, so tired. All he wanted to do—for the first time in his life—was sleep.

_Of course then, _he thought, _the nightmares will come again_. _Relentlessly, steadily uncompromising nightmares waiting for me to fall. _Every night, without fail, they would appear behind his eyes, disturbing the one escape he had left. _Tonight,_ he thought again, without hope … _I wish I could sleep._

They didn't understand his weariness, and he didn't blame them for it. Jack would have sacrificed himself a thousand times over to spare his team from understanding that kind of bleak despondency. He had, in fact, done this more than once. Sacrificed himself to save his team. Or tried to, at least.

The most prominent example he could think of (or maybe it was just always in the back of his mind, pressing for attention) was the year that never was. _Damn it! _He couldn't get away from it. The memories were always there, vying for attention. He buried them down forcefully. Although he could confront at least some of the memories, the ones that weren't so painful at the beginning, all the recollections he had from that year, detailed, vivid memories, ended in agony regardless. And it ripped open the wounds that had just begun to heal.

But he could admit at least this much to himself, he could _remember _this much, without feeling that anguish as much—he had sacrificed himself for his team during that year. More than once.

Jack had been so busy sorting out what had led him to the antithesis of his "happily ever after" that he didn't even realize the entire team had entered the room until Owen slammed the door behind him. Jack jumped.

He picked his head up just in time to see Ianto leap back, an inch from being hit in the face by said door, and then put his hand on the doorknob and open it back up again, whilst balancing a tray of coffee mugs. Jack stared at Ianto as he walked in, unaware of the concern showing in his eyes. The glass was too cloudy for to see Ianto's expression clearly, but Jack knew that he couldn't have hid his hurt at that action, especially not today. And he knew too that Ianto was glad of the fact that no-one had seen him at his weakest—with his guard down.

Gwen clapped, jolting Jack back into the present. He sighed, half in frustration, half in the sadness of loss. Still in a contemplative mood. _He never lets anyone take care of him. And no-one ever sees. _That was the most important thing, but something in him continued to whisper, _not like I do. Now._

"Okay!" Gwen dropped her hands. Her voice was unenthusiastic and tired for a change. "What do we do now?"

She asked the question without any real curiosity. They were all fatigued.

Jack picked himself up slowly. His headache was blinding him, but he grinned anyway. After a while you picked up some things about how to be a leader. They were depending on him, and he would be damned if he let them down.

"Right, everyone, listen up. Tosh has a briefing for us. The situation is not as urgent as you guys might think, but it's going to require a lot of work tomorrow. After Tosh fills us in, you guys are going to go home and take an early night."

There were various reactions to this, mostly consisting of muffled celebrations under everyone's breath. Ianto didn't join in, but he didn't look disappointed or angry either. Then again, Ianto always looked like he had just stepped out of bed, had had his morning cup of coffee, and was ready for an exciting day of work catering to everyone's needs. And of course, right now, he looked neutral, as usual. Jack yanked his attention back to the rest of the room, and tried to refocus.

Then he sighed. "Not so fast. We are all going to be on-call for the rest of the night just in case, and I want everybody to take the next hour seriously. This could be a threat to _our_ safety. In the Hub. And I want everyone refreshed for tomorrow too, so no overworking yourselves. Tosh, over to you."

He pointed at Owen, who was already starting to zone out, and glared. "You. Pay attention."

Tosh immediately leaped up, looking exhilarated.

Ianto raised an eyebrow. Jack groaned.

"What's got you so cheery?"

"Ya'll aren't gonna believe this."

After 10 minutes of lots of overly-detailed explanations some good old-fashioned techno-babble, Tosh stopped talking, smirking and sitting back in her chair. Incredulous glances met her all around. Gwen's mouth was hanging open a little. Owen was just staring at her, disbelieving. The same question was written all over their faces. How is that possible?

Ianto was the first one to speak. "Say what?"

"Oh that's just great. The teaboy's finally lost it. No polite 'excuse me?' just an irrelevant expression of shock. I think what he meant was, what the hell do you _mean_, 'healed the Rift'?

"I'm telling you— it's a key. It...mends things. I explained all the science already. It's like an extreme form of fusion. Our quantum mechanics hasn't developed that far yet, and it has to do with physics too because this artifact has some kind of relationship with time. I just… our machines aren't accurate enough to see what exactly this thing does. We just don't know what kind of link exists between this machine and our natural world. We don't even know if there _is _a link of that kind yet! But this machine says it exists, and it has done _something_ to the Rift."

Ianto, the only one with any kind of sense when it came to complicated missions, and not just shooting things, spoke again. "But what does that mean to us?"

Tosh continued, trying to bring them to the understanding that had shocked her over an hour earlier. "The Rift is natural. Or at least, it's so old that it seems natural. It's been there for so long that other things have learned to interact with it.

"Like… a forest growing to surround a creek. But that only takes hundreds of years—in comparison to the _millennia_ during which the Rift might have existed. But in any case, nature has learned to interact with it. Only, all of a sudden, this device falls through, and suddenly all these smaller extensions of the Rift, not necessarily in inner Cardiff, have started closing up. It's amazing."

"So are we all out of a job, or what?" That was Jack, half laughing with serious eyes fixed on her face. Expecting a solution. Tosh looked away.

"Well, no. The main Rift is still active, and even those smaller extensions weren't meant to be closed, at least not like this. It's causing a lot of problems. Like pollution in the natural environment."

Tosh didn't give anyone a chance to respond to that statement, instead overriding Owen's "Bu-" to continue onto more exciting things.

"But you guys just aren't getting it. Don't you realize what this means? This device, it healed part of a rift in _space and time_. The kind of nuclear physics involved in that must be too complex for humans to even comprehend right now. This device uses energy to… fix things. It could…"

Tosh drifted off into some more technical speech, so much so that everyone but Ianto tuned her out a little. No point in listening, when the kind of material they're talking about comes from the studying you do four more years into college. Four years of education that you've never had.

Owen's specialty is internal medicine. Gwen's training stopped at how to fill out paperwork and put handcuffs on someone. Apparently, she'd never even been given a gun before. That's what that says about the local police. Owen won't ever respect a copper again, not that he did to begin with.

Jack… everyone knows that Jack just picks things up here and there. Useful things, yes. Very useful sometimes, but Jack never had a formal education. Not that it matters, especially when it's his in-born reflexes that allow him to yank someone out of the way of death, by inches (for the thousandth time). All those things that make up _Jack_ are what made him such an excellent soldier.

Gwen leaned over the table to talk to those who weren't otherwise engaged. "She still hasn't answered Ianto's question."

"Tosh!" Jack jolted her back into the present with a loud shout. Tosh looked back over, and Jack met her eyes again.

"What does this mean for _us_?"

Tosh looked down, and her next words were barely above a whisper.

"It's possible… it's possible that the aliens are connected to this energy. That it can bring them back to life."

Tosh is reluctant to say the words because of Suzie, and their previous experiences with the resurrection glove. They seem to be jinxed. Life and death are now understood to be too powerful to be messed around with. And she's right. The team's understandable reaction is fear and tension. Silence fills the room.

Gazes shift, no-one making eye-contact. Gwen's hands are clenched so tightly that her knuckles are white, and as she stares down at them, she can't seem to relax. Even just a little. Ianto blanched.

"Look—" Tosh spoke earnestly, as always, but she was cut off before she could even give her opinion on the situation. Jack interrupts abruptly.

"It's okay Tosh." He's half looking at Ianto when he tries to stop her from addressing the obvious connection between the glove and Suzie and the current mission.

"No it's not! We need to face this."

Jack wasn't that surprised, and he let Tosh go on against his better judgment. She was right anyway. That had been part of the reason why he hired her. If they just let this lie while continuing on with a mission that was so obviously dangerous people would get hurt. But he wasn't happy about it.

He looked at Ianto one more time, worried, before glancing at Tosh hurriedly, and saying, "Okay. Okay, I'm listening."

All he wanted to do right now was catch Ianto's hand under the table, interlacing fingers. Touch his hips, draw him in for a comforting kiss, eyes locked. Just to get rid of all the pain and fear evident in his gaze.

Ianto was so pale he looked as if he was about to pass out. His mouth is a thin line of tension. No-one else knows why anyway, and that might be why they don't notice, but Jack doesn't care. All he sees is the fright and alarm on Ianto's face.

Tosh leaned in, serious once again, trying to catch the eyes of Gwen.

"Gwen. Gwen! Look at me. This science is different. I don't understand it, but I know it's different than what happened with Suzie. Those were unique circumstances. She was dangerous. None of us knew that, but she was. It was as much her that contributed to what happened as it was the technology."

Owen chipped in softly. "And everyone had a bad feeling about that goddamn glove anyway."

Tosh glared at him. "_Anyway._ It wasn't your fault. Let me explain what I know about this stuff."

Gwen was hesitant, and she was still looking at her hands, but she spoke anyway. "Okay."

"Okay." Tosh addresses the room once again. "This is a different type of science. I have a general idea of why this is happening. These aliens are connected to the energy of the Rift too. And because they know how to use it, they can do extraordinary things. The only thing we know about the energy of the Rift, after all the years people have worked here, is that the energy is extremely powerful.

"And that it's pretty much off the scale because there's such an abundance of it. So, because these aliens can tap into this energy, like this machine can… kind of, they might have been able to sustain themselves and then heal their injuries after—well, after Ianto shot them."

Jack eyebrows shoot up, and he sends an incredulous, confused glance at Ianto, which Ianto resolutely ignores. He is still stubbornly looking at Tosh.

"So, it's not like they can come back to life really. More like, their tech is so advanced, so ingenious, and so old, that what they can do looks like magic to most people. Oh, and also, it's really hard to kill them, because as long as they are tapping into that Rift energy hardly anything we do to them will be permanently fatal. Like I said, we just don't have the equipment."

"So what could they possibly want?"

Tosh rolled her eyes. "Haven't you been listening? I _don't know_. They could be doing anything. They could be off planet for all I know. It's not like they're just going to contact us and spill their motives for kidnapping you. I don't think they would even know how to work with our common technology it's so incompatible to the incredible gear they use. Plus, we don't speak the language."

Ianto piped up once more. "Actually, we do speak the language."

Everyone looked at him. Ianto was practically grinning. Tosh seemed to be gradually smiling. "What have you been up too?"

"Well, I dug up that old translator and made some modifications to it. It's been a pet project of mine. I finally finished it on my time off."

"I thought I told you—!"

"Oh, it's fine Owen, I just tinkered with some stuff on my couch. And you're going to love this. You don't have to do as much work." Ianto looked at Owen disparagingly.

"I used the Archives to attach a species name and location to artifact characteristics. I used the species history too, in order to try and more accurately identify where and when something comes from when it falls through the Rift. So, I entered in that box yesterday afternoon, and came up with some very helpful background information on the species. And another artifact with writing on it. Writing plus translator equals, viola! We now speak their language."

Tosh was full-blown beaming now. "No way."

"Yep."

"Oh my god. That's—that's amazing."

Ianto grinned again. Jack looked at the ceiling to prevent himself from doing something stupid. "Yeah it is."

"Okay! Can we stop the flirting now. Woohoo, you two are both complete geeks. We already knew that."

Owen was met by twin death glares. He looked from Tosh to Ianto and was hit by a sudden urge to flee the room. He was impressed, and still a little scared. That took some skill.

Jack drew the attention away from Owen and he heaved a sigh of relief. "So, the question is, what _do _we do now?"

"There isn't anything we can do." Four heads turned to look at Ianto . Not in vague shock, as Jack had expected… but in… worry. Respect. They took what he was saying at face value. They didn't question him. They didn't override him. They didn't brush him off as having anything meaningless to say. They… listened to him. Well. That's one thing that has obviously changed around here.

_Good_. Jack thought. _It's about time he got some respect. He deserves it. _But that voice in the back of Jack's head was still whispering _What if he betrays you again? He'll never be ready for the responsibility of being a field agent. He's just a pretty office boy. He's just a child. He committed treason. He shouldn't be a part of the team. Why are they all ofa sudden friends with him now? _The voice became softer and softer, but still, it got in one last parting shot before Jack shoved it down to the back of his mind in disgust. _What about me?_

And now Jack did his best to bury the voice deeper in the back of his mind. It was jealousy, plain and simple. And he knew it was just because the others could see Ianto now too.

Ianto continued. "We don't know what they want. We don't know what they're going to do next. All we can really do is be alert. Wait. They'll make a mistake eventually."

Jack was barely even aware he had spoken when he murmured "You're right" in a somewhat contemplative and shocked tone.

"What?"

"He's right." Jack said to Gwen, his voice more confident now. "Get some sleep while you can, and know that we'll be the ones calling you in when the phone rings. And it will most likely be _some _sort of emergency." Jack rolled his eyes.

"We?" Ianto was the one to speak now, and the hustle of the room grinded instantly to a halt, silence falling over the conference table.

"What?"

"You said _we_. I thought everyone was going to go home."

"Oh." There wasn't much else Jack could think of to say.

"I didn't…I, well, I meant—"

"What did you mean, sir?"

Jack stumbled over his next words hurriedly as he tried to correct himself. "Nothing Ianto, I just, I didn't even realize I—"

"What?"

"I— you shouldn't stay anyway. You, you should get some sleep and rest and… were you planning on staying for the night? You should go home."

Jack ran his hand through his hair distractedly, fiddling with the pen and paperwork on the table.

"Right. I'll just be going then." Ianto practically ran from the room.

Jack looked up in alarm, taking two hurried steps through the door. "Ianto, wait!"

He was halted by Owen's hand at his shoulder. "Give him some space."

"I didn't mean that he couldn't stay, I just thought that—"

"I know."

Jack looked beseechingly at Tosh "He needs rest anyway. I just wanted to—"

Tosh smiled kindly at the worry in Jack's eyes. "I know. I'll talk to him." And she watched that worry give way to relief.

Tosh continued, trying to reassure Jack, fill him in. She always felt better with more information. "He was probably planning on staying and doing some filing anyway. I can't pull that man away from his work most of the time. He is determined to make it so that an idiot can find his way around the archives to find something to save the world in under thirty seconds." She glanced meaningfully at Owen.

"Hey!"

"So he'll probably be here during the night. Just give him some space."

Jack looked exasperatedly at the ceiling to hide his grief. "That's what I was trying to do."

* * *

Ianto was losing it. He felt so weak. His only condolence is that no-one was there to see his complete breakdown. This was the _second time_ damn it. The second time he had cried because of Jack. Well, just counting since he got back. It felt like Ianto had broken down hundreds of times because of Jack. He probably had. Ianto's gaze shifted from one thing to another in search of something to grab onto and think about that wasn't Jack. At least no-one was there to see. Except Tosh, Tosh had been there last time. And Gwen and Owen had been there many times before that and _damn it!_

"Oh my god, this is ridiculous!"

"Shouting at thin air?" Tosh appeared from around the corner, and it took all Ianto's effort to look away instead of glancing towards her in hopeless relief. He didn't want to be weak anymore. He didn't want to be so fragile and tired. Tosh continued into the room anyway.

"That's the first sign of madness you know. Well… the seventh. But that's what Owen would say to make you feel better."

Ianto kept staring at the ceiling, spitting out the words in frustration. "Owen doesn't give a damn about me." He let out a soft sob, involuntarily, and it broke Tosh's heart just a little bit more.

"You know, you don't have to be alone."

"Oh, you know me, Tosh. Since when do I not wear my emotions on my sleeve? There's no point in being alone anyway. Everyone will know. The tea-boy is finally going crazy." He wiped his eyes angrily on his coat sleeves, and she could hear the desperation in his voice, as clearly as if he had physically solicited her for some kind of reaffirmation of his sanity.

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

"No, Ianto, it's not true! We care about you. I love you, you _know _that. You're my only family. So don't you _dare_ leave me alone like this_._ You don't haveto shut people out, and no-one will think less of you for letting out your emotions once in a while."

"You mean… I can finally show my dark side?" Ianto gave a weak chuckle.

"That's not what I meant."

"I've already messed up once Tosh. I don't want to do it again. Second chances don't exist in this business." He still wasn't looking at her.

"You _typswn!_" His head snapped back towards her. Finally. "You're not… useless, if you need to blow off steam once in a while, just because you've seen a 13-year old girl die, and there was nothing you could do about it. Or because you have to go burn the body of a man who did nothing but make an honest living in the government, and then Retcon his wife and children because a Sleeper agent killed that man… and know that even if they're better off not remembering the death of their father, those children will still be losing a piece of their lives."

"Or because—because your boss came back after a six-month long hiatus, and he's exactly the same as usual, only he won't tell you what happened, and you don't _ask._ Because you don't want to know what happened out there in the universe, to break a man like that. And Ianto, you're not weak just for… wanting him."

Ianto turned to her, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that he wasn't standing up so perfectly straight anymore. He'd let his barriers down. She knew it was killing him, to let her see him like this. It must have killed him even more to let Jack see him like this. If Jack ever did. But now, she could help him. She could reach him.

"Tosh." He looked desperate. His eyes were shining with tears. "He makes me feel like a teenager again."

Ianto let out another sob, and Tosh took a step towards him. His next words halted her just as effectively as if she had run into a brick wall.

"I came to terms with my sexuality a long time ago, Tosh. I've been in love before. And I've looked at men and women like that. I'm _free._

"But Jack is just so… ugh! This is why, this…. I am an adult. I should be able to string together a sentence about how he makes me feel. I am a _field agent_. I can fire a gun at an alien, I can save a mission, I can shut Owen the hell up, and I can manage this place every single day and make sure that we don't go insane. I've finally earned… something. Some respect. I just know I don't have to "prove myself" anymore."

"You've never had to prove yourself to me, Ianto."

"Yes I have Tosh." He smiled at her knowingly. "Yes I have. I've had to prove myself to every one of you."

Tosh closed her eyes. "I know. But at least you've never had to tell me that you were worth something. I knew… I know that now."

"Tosh, I've finally… forgiven myself. For Lisa. I lay flowers on her grave every Saturday, did you know that? I can go there with love in my heart and without bursting into tears when I see her grave.

"And when he left, I learned to respect myself too." Ianto averted his eyes, and Tosh probably wasn't meant to hear the next word he muttered under his breath, but she did anyway.

"Eventually."

Tosh looked down.

"So, our relationship isn't as seriously screwed up any longer. We're not playing those sick games anymore. So why does it feel like we are? Because I still can't tell Jack that what I really just want to do is—"

"Is what?"

"Nothing."

"Ianto… everyone, everyone gets confused. Especially when they fall in love."

"I am not in love with him! I'm just- I'm just… not. It's too hard to love him. So I'm… I don't love him. I _don't_."

This time it was Tosh's chance to smile knowingly. "Okay, Ianto. Okay. But if you don't, it's an awful shame. Because I know he feels that way about you."

And this time Ianto really did break down. The unshed tears in his eyes spilled over his cheeks, as he shook his head, and he looked perfectly tragic. And though he didn't look heartbroken, he wasn't smiling anymore as he cried. And then the image was broken as he practically ran forward to Tosh and she pulled him into a hug, letting him weep into her shoulder, filling her ear with whispers of all the things in his life he is too ashamed to admit out loud, begging for help. He didn't look tragic anymore. He didn't look _perfect. _He didn't look like a larger than life hero, who stands up and fights, in spite of all the resistance against him. Because what kind of hero has that kind of confidant, to whom he can give all his secrets too?


	8. Chapter 8

Time was such an idiotic concept.

Jack was sitting in his office, bored to death of waiting for something to happen, and just couldn't help but think it. That thought had been coming on for years anyway. Here he was, having traveled through time before, crossed his own time line (despite the endless resistance the Doctor put up about it), changed history in some very significant ways (_traveling_ with the Doctor too, he might add), and he was sitting in his desk chair, alone, in the dark, _waiting _to save the world.

_Though not quite_ alone, he supposed. It just felt like it.

Ianto was in the Hub too, somewhere, probably trying to avoid him. Not that it would be that hard. Jack had purposefully stayed in one place (his aforementioned office) to make it easy for Ianto to go wherever he wanted and not have to even look at Jack. Because had to give Ianto _time_. And space. Stupid space.

Everything people hear about relationships is a complete lie. Jack knew this for a fact now. Because no-one ever mentions the fights or the heart-breaking break-ups or the fact that all that drama is unrealistic, and half of relationships end because after being married for five or ten years, everything starts to get boring. Fantastical and imaginative writers focus on all the happily-ever-after BS, and the gals who can never seem to meet the right guy…. and then they do. It was all so foolish.

No-one ever writes movies about how 90% of all relationships just don't work out—because you want different things, or the spark just isn't there, or you actually _do _meet your soul-mate, the man you want to spend the rest of your damn life with, only that's impossible, and even that doesn't matter because you don't even realize it as you're too busy taking him for granted and you screw up so badly it doesn't feel like he is ever going to forgive you.

Jack sighed heavily. He'd always found it easy to love. A lot of the time he hated that about himself.

He sighed again and stood up to retrieve the Rubik's cube under his desk. He idly turned it, rotating the boxes and rows as he walked around his office aimlessly, thinking. He'd had the thing ever since the 70's, when it had first been invented. And he loved it. No-one actually knew about this particular pet hobby, but Jack just found the thing fascinating. He never could resist a challenge, and when the puzzle was first invented everyone was raving about it.

It advertised to be the hardest puzzle in the history of puzzles, and this was soon proven to be at least somewhat true, as it stumped _everybody_. There were college students who would carry it around all day, working on it during their free time. Jack was one of those people, even if he wasn't a college student. The math behind a Rubik's cube was astounding. He only learned about that later of course, as other people studied it, but in the meantime he would pick it up and work on it whenever he could. As stated before, Jack could never resist a challenge.

It became a keepsake. His first Rubik's cube was long gone now of course, worn down from constant use and re-use, and he had re-bought the original toy. No matter how many more new fancy variations of the Rubik's cube came along, the original would always be his favorite. The solutions were all over the internet now, of course, but Jack would always pride himself on having solved it without any help… eventually. He could do the thing in a matter of seconds now, but he still liked to pick it up every now and again. His new challenge had become to solve the middles, and narrow down his time to under two minutes. If Owen ever found out about it, he would crack up. Jack had a contingency plan though. Let's see how long it took _him_ to solve it without the aid of a computer.

Ianto would have loved that Jack was interested in Rubik's cubes.

In fact, Ianto probably understood all the math behind it, and he would explain it all to Jack… slowly, of course, and again and again until Jack _finally _got it. And then he would sigh in a mix of exasperation and pleasure and pride, and they would both find something new that just drew them together even more.

But Jack had never told Ianto that he was interested in Rubik's cubes. And now it was too late.

What was wrong with him? Was he so afraid to lose anyone that he didn't even let people into his non-personal life? What was so bad about telling them all those insignificant stories that made him who he was, anyway? What was wrong with letting them see that he was_ human_?

The answer to his questions automatically sprung up into his mind. He had thought about this so many times it was becoming tiring. It was because he wasn't really human. At least not technically.

Because then they'd start asking questions, and over half the people he had known or met didn't know about all the impossibly _real_ things out there in the stars. He had experienced it. That was his world out there. That was his life.

And the other half of the people he knew or met rejected him because of that. The ones that knew even a little about him hated him, because he lived, while their friends died in Torchwood. They stayed away from him because of all the questions they would raise by introducing him anywhere to anyone. _What's with the period military coat? Is your friend gay by any chance? Why does he carry around a gun? What's with the accent?_

Because he was dangerous. Because he was "bisexual", but not really. Because he flirted constantly, and had a personality that just didn't fit in with all the stereotypes people stubbornly clung onto on this wonderful planet—a planet that had the potential to be so much _more!_

If they would just let go of their shields for one second! If they would just stop judging people. If they would just stop judging _themselve_s, holding themselves up to the standard of "normality" that everyone else believed in so thoroughly. Each individual person thought he or she was all alone because they were different. It was sad. People's differences were what made them unique, and for years, people were still blind to that. And they would continue to be for some time.

Sometimes he wished so badly he could go home. And then he remembered that one person who did know more about him than he had ever told anyone before. There was someone out there, one amazing person out of the thousands he had met that knew him.

Ianto, who he knew loved him. Who accepted him for every single fault Jack had ever revealed to him. And Ianto was so close to leaving him now. _So _close.

And it was still fear that kept Jack from opening up to him, even just a _little_ bit more. The fear that had developed over centuries, from all the experiences he had had with betrayal, and rejection.

What would Ianto do if he did know everything about Jack's past. What would he do if he knew that Jack had fled from Estelle, leaving her without any closure, without knowing where he had gone or why? What would he do if he knew that Jack had sacrificed 12 children, sacrificed them, in order to save almost 7 million people?

What would Ianto _do_ if he knew that in 1979 Jack had taken an innocent person, a girl into a small, secluded room, and had brutally tortured her for hours on end because _those were his orders_.

She had only been 17. An alien, yes. Captured by Torchwood, unaware of the desperate warnings Jack had tried to get to her in her native language before Guppy and Holroyd arrived at the Rift activity location. But innocent. She must have been terrified. The Rift had taken her away from her home to an alien world which she had no knowledge of. And then Jack came into her prison cell, his face closed off, his mind desperately reaching out to her to help her find some way to escape. He had known that this nation had some physic ability. She was obviously not receptive to mental intrusions after being dropped off in the middle of Earth and then kidnapped.

And Jack was only so desperate because he knew what they had ordered him to do. And she didn't.

He had no choice. He really hadn't. The subjugation Torchwood put him under was more powerful than he would have thought. They were ruthless. And his desperation and lack of understanding was such that he would have done anything to try and find the Doctor. How ironic. Such loyalty, and the 10th regeneration of the Time Lord couldn't even repay that by getting him back home on time, never mind giving him the absolution he had needed for centuries. _Bastard_.

Jack realized that there were tears starting to form in his eyes and he dashed them off angrily, sitting heavily in his chair. He poured himself a glass of whiskey, and then still couldn't help being pulled into that horrific memory.

He never even knew her name, but she had screamed herself voiceless after he had finished with her. And that wasn't even the worst part.

He still remembered her face. He still remembered the hope in her eyes when he first entered the room.

_He shut the door behind him, and glanced up at the camera once again. It blinked at him cheerfully. They were watching, of course. They were always watching him. _

_He couldn't put it off any longer, and he reluctantly looked towards the creature, still trying to objectify it. He gasped. She was female. And she was young._

_He had been to their planet before. He knew what she would look like. But he didn't know that he would get caught in her eyes. So expressive. So full of hope, as she felt the pity and recognition that spilled from him, twined together inseparably. She spoke in her native tongue, passionately, excitedly, but disguised as despair and hopelessness. She was clever. _

Do you know us? Please, have you come to free me? I know that you are not like the rest of them here. You understand me!

_Jack could almost hear their gasps of shock and then chortles of delight at that upstairs. They hadn't known he spoke the language, and were probably more ecstatic than ever to have a useful tool. They had translation software back at the main Hub, of course, but there was no reason Jack should have been able to understand the _"threat" _down in the cell._

_They hadn't counted on him being able to understand her, but they were probably just taking it as another opportunity to whip him into shape. Bully out his compassion._

_She spoke again, fear tinting her lyrical voice. _

Help, please help. I do not know where I am, I do not know what to do. My parents will be worried. You can help me get home, I know you can! I won't harm anyone here. I do not even know where I am. Please, help me.

_They would be laughing upstairs. Knowing they had control over him. Knowing he was one of the most proficient torturers the Time Agency had ever hired. Knowing the creature was a danger to the empire, and they must have all the information they could get out of her, before executing her. Murdering her._

_He looked back up at the CCTV camera, winking at him menacingly, and for a moment his old spirit took hold, his determination, and there was no way he would ever do this. Never. He couldn't. Then the loudspeaker came on, and a harsh demanding voice filled the room. "We don't have time for bleeding hearts _Captain. _You will do what we order you to do. Get the information out of her."_

_Jack's anguished shout made the girl jump in fright, as it echoed around the room deafeningly. "You don't even know if she is worth something!" His voice transformed, pleading, and the girl relaxed in her chair a bit. "Please, I know this species. She poses no threat to you."_

"_There are no exceptions Captain Harkness. You will do as commanded. Or you won't ever see the light of day again. What will you be able to do if your precious Doctor comes then?"_

_The loudspeaker cut off with an ominous rush of static, and Jack shouted wordlessly in a rush of frustration and anger. The girl flinched violently once again, terrified, as a wooden chair splintered against the wall, feet from where she sat restrained. The only sound that filled the room were the harsh breaths of Jack as he stared, shoulders heaving, at the broken remains of what had used to be a chair. _

_The words, curses, poured from his lips, and soon he was shouting at them, "She's only a child!"_

_At the silence of the room, the lack of any reply to his desperate threats, he turned violently, and knew that it was all useless. "Damn it!" _

_Calm came over him. Breathing out, anguished, and he leaned against the wall with his head in his hands. He stayed there, eyes closed, trying not to think about what he was about to do. What he _had_ to do. He had no choice. _

_Jack turned to look at the girl again, and stared at her frightened face for almost ten minutes. His eyes were empty. He would never forget the way that hope drained out of her eyes at what he said next, in her own language, knowing that she was no threat, knowing who she was. _

"_I am not here to save you."_

_Then the screaming began._

Jack shook himself out of the memory fearfully, and closed his eyes against the tears. That had been so long ago, and he still remembered every second of detail like it had happened hours before. And there was more. So much more. He realized the glass in his hand was shaking and he grabbed his wrist quickly, trying to still the clinking of ice. He set it down on the desk.

There were the things that Torchwood had made him do. His past in the Time Agency, his relationship with John, his life as a con-man, all alcohol and meaningless sex. All the people he had hurt that way. And he can't tell anyone.

These tragedies exist only within the confines of his own mind, and in the deceased that lay buried beneath all their feet. He's never told anyone the entirety of these events that keeps hidden away. Not the Doctor. Not even his team. Because Jack doesn't want to _see_ the disappointment and shame in the Doctor's eyes. He doesn't want to look at Gwen and Tosh and Owen and see the shock and fear in theirs, when they realize that they've been following a man who has done all of these things.

They wouldn't ever trust him again. They already have trouble with those decisions he has to make, decisions he_ can_ only make because of his past. If they knew about that past, they would never follow him again. And Jack can't help think that maybe they would be right not too.

Rose would've understood. Rose would have looked him in the eye and forgiven him without a word. Maybe that means that Ianto will understand too. _But I'm scared. Of losing him, and… Ianto… Ianto could love me, if I only let him in. That's what I'm scared of. That he'll know, and then he'll go anyway, running away as fast as he can in disgust. And that he'll be right to leave._

* * *

Ianto was lying on a small dingy couch in the lower levels of the archives. _Though however dingy,_ he thought, _it is comfortable_. His legs were hanging off the end of the couch, knees bent over the far arm of it. He lay with his hands behind his head at the other end, drifting into the plush, soft surface, not thinking about anything in particular. All he could see at the moment was the dull-off white tiled ceiling, light from the yellow lamp behind him reflecting off of the cheap plastic it was made of.

He couldn't really bring himself to care that he was slumped over the couch so unproductively, pretty much ignoring his work. He was too apathetic.

If any one of the team had come in just now, the scene would have painted an astonishing picture for them. Ianto's jacket lay abandoned, tossed over the back of a small wooden chair carelessly. His tie was off too, lying on the ring-stained coffee table to his right, in front of that dingy couch, whose high back was fitted up against the wall comfortably. Ianto hadn't even bothered with rolling up his sleeves; just unbuttoning the cuffs of them so that they hung loosely around his wrists… which were, as stated before, crossed behind his head.

The coffee table was on top of a warm-looking rug, several of whose corners were frayed and faded, and one corner was flipped back over itself, as Ianto had tripped over it stumbling in to the room tiredly. On top of the coffee table was a file, half open, with paper spilling out of it, headlines and titles visible, but only in part. The bold writing on the front of the manila folder read "**3H". **

Ianto knew the file was there. He hadn't been thinking about it for that past couple of minutes. He'd been trying not to think about it, despite his displeasure at the thought of it _not_ being filed yet. It was an event file pertaining to blowfish mission a few days back. All the files were first categorized by Event, Person/Alien, Location, or Artifact/Weapon.

After that, Events were organized chronologically, and then in alphabetical order, with similar Events (like weevil hunts, etc.) being placed with the last recorded date of the most recent Event. Persons/Aliens were filed in order of threat level/pertinence to the Rift, and then likelihood of another attack/event, and then alphabetically, and then chronologically. Locations were filed in order of proximity to the rift, then in relation to an event (chronologically and alphabetically), and Artifacts were filed by general use categories in alphabetical order, then by chronological date of last recorder use. Weapons had their own system, organized around what they did and what situations, persons, or events they could affect.

Interconnected files/cases were color-coded, numbered and lettered. Ianto had started with persons/aliens and the events they were linked to. Then Locations were linked to Events, as well as Artifacts/Weapons.

The secondary system started with Artifacts/Weapons that were not linked to an Event, but a Location, and then a very hesitant Person/Alien who might have come from the planet of origin. Ianto started with the yellow labels and 1A. Then a different set of interconnected files would come under an orange label with 2A. When he ran out of colors, he would start over with a slightly different yellow label under 1B. The primary system had the lighter colors (red, orange, yellow, etc.), and the secondary system had the darker colors (blue, green, purple, etc.).

But Ianto was trying not to think about all that.

In fact, he was trying not to think about anything at all. It wasn't working, but at least he wasn't thinking about… Ianto jerked himself back to the previous topic by the last remnants of his willpower. It was a healing process. Yeah right. The reason Ianto was having such trouble with this was that he knew if he didn't face his feelings right now, everything would just get worse. But at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to do that yet. It was just too hard. He couldn't find the courage, the _resolve_, to own up to what he was feeling right now. It was a lot.

_I need him. I really do. Every time we kiss I fall in love with him just a little bit more. Because in his arms, I feel safe._

Ianto shot up off the couch and grabbed the file on the table. Fine. If he couldn't meditate for a few hours… or, whatever he was doing…. he would work until he was so exhausted, all he would be able to do was fall into bed and finally, finallysleep.

Ianto headed down to the vaults to feed the Weevils.

* * *

Jack abandoned his pacing and sat down in his desk chair, idly spinning around until his office seemed to spin on its axis. The fact was, he was only human. Such a tired phrase. No-one really knew what it meant anymore. People simply used it to excuse their failures of integrity, of courage, of generosity towards others. In a way, it was a completely meaningless term, for "only human", meant, "not really human at all". At least, not human in the way that the Doctor celebrated humanity. But rather in a way that defined every weakness of the human race, and extrapolated it, and shone a spotlight on it. Only human.

Well, Jack was only human. The same as the rest of the planet in the only respects that mattered. He was selfish. He was thoughtless and ignorant of how others felt, and he spoke his mind. He was self-centered. He was… impatient. Maybe that's what humanity is, in the end. Blindness. And hope.

"Jack!"

The shout was wildly desperate. Jack was out of his seat before he even realized what was going on, his gun drawn. The room tilted. He couldn't move, wavering on unsteady feet.

"Jack!" The shout was scared; Ianto's voice edging into the anger he only expressed when he was really terrified. When he didn't know what the hell was going on. Ianto. He ran.

* * *

Feeding the Weevils was not helping take Ianto's mind off of anything. For one, it was extremely depressing. It was cold and dark, and altogether a generally miserable chore. But Ianto drudged through the slow, difficult tasks anyway, finding the meat, sedating the creatures and feeding all of them with very thick rubber gloves. **All **of them. Of which there were about twenty.

They'd just released five last week, because they had seemed a bit calmer. Janet was a permanent resident now because she was too domesticated to go back into the sewers, but hopefully the others would be ready to be released soon too. And hopefully, they would be a little wearier at the sight of a gun or taser.

And all this because going home and curling up with a mug of coffee…or more probably, tea… seemed way too pathetic when he really thought about it. Ianto was not one to be pathetic, even during his off-duty hours. He was a hell of a lot stronger than that. Hopefully.

He was just hauling up the third load of raw beef to cells number ten through twenty when he passed Janet's cell. And she spoke.

"Ifan." The first thing Ianto noticed was that the voice had completely butchered the pronunciation, as most people tended to do, so that it was obviously not Welsh. Then he realized that Janet was the only one in close proximity to him and the bucket of meat dropped, with a loud and echoing clang, spilling across the floor.

Ianto's head snapped up. The eyes looking back at him were intelligent. The Weevil was standing up straight, not hunched over like an animal. And that was _not_ a Weevil. Ianto fell backwards into the wall as if someone had physically shoved him.

He could still hear the echoing water and the distant humming of the Hub upstairs.

"Ifan Jones"

He was pressed up against the wall, the harsh brick on the brink of ripping his already damp suit, trying to back into a different room. Somewhere else. _Anywhere_ else.

Later it seemed irrational. Needless. Nothing had actually invaded the Hub. He wasn't in any immediate danger. But he didn't know that.

This thing was calling him by name. His _real _name. A name only his family knew him by, a name that he hadn't used for at least twenty years. And Weevils couldn't talk, and this creature was obviously not a Weevil. So what was preventing it from opening the vault and ripping him to shreds? Absolutely nothing.

Ianto was terrified. His throat was dry, so the first time he tried to talk, nothing came out. A hoarse sound of fear. He had been trying to call a name. He licked his lips and tried again.

"Jack—" It came out in a whisper. That thing was still staring at him.

"Jack!" It was pleading.

After a few seconds it looked like no help was forthcoming.

This time Ianto cursed under his breath before shouting out again. "Goddamnit. _Jack!_"

And suddenly, he was there. Well—his gun. Ianto resisted the urge to laugh. He knew that any sort of noise he made would come out hysterical. Finally, at no immediate threat, Jack appeared around the corner, glorious and beautiful, because the look on his face was so unlike the Jack Ianto knew. Something seemed to kick into gear within him, and, with one last glance at the non-Weevil, he straightened up violently, brushing off his suit in familiar, efficient motions.

"Jack." If that short word had been written with stage directions it would have been _in a matter of fact tone._ Though, at the same time, the part they didn't write in any script was Ianto's helpless affection, known in every word he said to Jack. Happiness, and relief as well.

"Ianto." Jack breathed out. "You're alright."

Both were silent for a moment, and their locked gaze was broken by Ianto's awkward (and forced) cough.

"What happened?" That was Jack…. Being Jack.

"Captain." That voice. And it was almost as if they had synchronized the motion, the way their heads both snapped towards Janet at the same time. The voice was emotionless, but Ianto couldn't help but think that if… whatever it was… wasn't using Janet as a vessel, the single word would've been spoken in surprise. He, or she, was a person. There was intelligence in that voice. He could feel it.

Ianto looked at Jack once more and raised his eyebrows slightly. "That happened."

Then, in sync once again, they both turned to face the threat, the mystery, the alien. Diplomatic, professional, strong. And for the first time in over a month, Ianto and Jack were side by side.

* * *

"So, let me get this straight. You want one of our agents, namely, Ianto—sorry, _Ifan_—to meet you, alone, in a location that will be disclosed to us only ten minutes before this supposed meeting, to something that may or _may not_ pose an immediate threat to the Earth?" By the time Jack finished speaking, his usual flirty, lighthearted tone had become disbelieving incredulity.

"Yes." Neutral, as usual. And maybe it was because they had contacted him, or that he could see the creature's eyes, or just that he had an intuition about these things, but to Ianto he sounded… wary.

Jack's fist tightened and alarm bells went off in Ianto's head.

"There is no way in hell that is ever going to f—"

"Jack!" It would be fair to say here that Ianto was equal parts angry and astonished. Jack looked at him in surprise, and soon after that he felt himself being pulled away by the elbow to hold a hurried, whispered conference in the corner—like some delusional 13 year-old.

"Ianto, you can't agree to this. It's insane. We… we have no tactical advantage, we don't even know what they _want_…" Jack slowed and halted. Ianto was just staring at him. Unhesitant, he spoke, still looking at Jack, eyebrows furrowed, frowning.

"It's not your decision to make."

He turned to face their visitor, ignoring Jack's frantic grasp on his shoulder. Beneath those automatic actions, Ianto's anxiety was warring with giddiness. _He cares about me. _Ianto was finding it difficult not to grin in delight. He had to make and effort to remember why he shouldn't smile—to refocus himself. He didn't want too. But then he remembered what they had been negotiating for the last half hour, and he immediately sobered.

"Can you give us any more information on what you wish to discuss? You must understand our hesitancy in agreeing to such a risky proposal." He spoke as politely as he could to someone whom his boss had just cursed out. Although… that was pretty polite. He'd had practice. But this was **real, **it was incredibly more important than UNIT's inane demands, and _damn it_, Jack should have known better.

This was why they were all here. What he had been working for all this time. Intergalactic cooperation. Finding another race that could put aside their reasonable, well-based fears and _learn_ from the diversity of life. From the beautiful intricacies of creation. They could gain so much from this! More than just a simple tip-off about upcoming Torchwood-related danger.

The creature turned to face Jack. That was unexpected. There was a spark of something like curiosity in its eyes. And then empathy. It spoke again.

"Yes." A pause "We… understand." When the creature stopped there, Ianto could see Jack physically relax. He eyes narrowed. He was missing something. He hated missing things. Even though the creature's answer made sense, it was as if it wasn't answering his question. It was talking to someone else. Jack. Why was it talking to Jack? And what was it _saying_?

"We understand—even if you do not." Of, fantastic. Another egotistical species who thought they knew everything. And dripped superiority with every word, only telling you something they knew when they knew you wouldn't understand. Brilliant. Ianto took a deep breath and mentally counted to ten.

"The only thing you need to know is that this is vital to your organization. We can help you."

Oh he didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.

"Okay." Jack said.

Ianto's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"He can go. And we'll all go unarmed if two of our other agents may accompany him. If this is so vital to our organization, everyone should know."

"Jack, what the hell?" Whispered. What made him suddenly start trusting these people?

"That's not possible. We must speak with Ifan alone." Though Ianto was still facing Jack, a shiver ran up his spine.

"We can't do that. We can't just put him out there unprotected."

"We can protect him." Jack laughed. Oh good. He hadn't completely lost his mind.

"Fine. Fine okay? I'll go. But I want the team to be able to cover me from a distance." Ianto was desperately trying to regain control of the situation. This was getting out of hand.

"No. They may accompany you. That is acceptable. But those two agents may not be privy to all the details of our conversation."

Jack glanced at Ianto quickly, then back to the creature.

"And how will you manage that?"

"There must be some level of trust."

Jack sighed. "Okay that's… fine. But we meet in a neutral location. A safe space for both parties. And no weapons."

"That is reasonable."

"Okay." Ianto interjected, before Jack could agree for him. He had to get a word in somehow. Jack reached out, gently, and his hand grazed Ianto's shoulder. Ianto's gaze softened.

"Okay."

"Tomorrow, at midday." Then the creature was gone. Suddenly, without warning. The intelligence was gone from those eyes, though Janet was still there, looking bewildered. Ianto turned to face at Jack. He was grinning. "Well, that was exciting."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Only you." He turned to walk up the stairs, but Jack frowned. He caught up to Ianto at the main Hub. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ianto looked up from his work in surprise, frowning. "Nothing, Jack. I was just… making conversation." He finished weakly, realizing he didn't actually have an answer to Jack's question. Realizing how stupid he sounded.

"See, that right there. That answer is complete bullshit. You'd never want to admit it Ianto, but this is you, running away again. When can we talk about this?"

Ianto froze. When he turned to face Jack, eye to eye, the expression he wore was ice-cold. And when he started talking, his voice was flat, and deadly quiet.

"You want to talk about running away Jack? What about you, huh? You haven't told me a damn thing! You never tell me anything. And you know, I wouldn't mind so much if you ever, just once, asked me something about myself. But no, you want a no-strings attached relationship. That's still what you want. And I can't **do **it anymore Jack!" By the time Ianto finished, he was shouting. Jack was stunned.

"No, Ianto. No, I want more, I want… I want everything, I've chan—"

"God Jack, just stop. Just stop right there. I know what you're going to say, and it's not true. Have you even considered what you're _promising_? How I would **feel**?" Ianto spat out the last words.

Jack was silent.

"No, no of course not. Damn it Jack! Do you never think about anyone but yourself?" Ianto turned bitterly, trying to find an escape. Any escape. When none became available, he found the only place to look was facing Jack again.

His tone was angry and resentful with his next words. And as soon as he had spoken them he wanted to take it all back. But the words poured from his lips anyway, almost involuntarily, telling of every single thing he had felt when Jack left. Because he was angry, and hurt. And he felt like Jack deserved to know.

"You know, after this… after this you better have a damn good explanation before you try getting back into my pants. Because God knows I'm so _gorgeous_ you can't go two minutes without trying to hit on me."

Ianto regretted it the second the words left his mouth. The look on Jack's face was gutted.

Ianto felt like he had just been hit with an electrical shock. His mouth opened, trying to say something, anything, to erase the poison that had filled the air between them with his words. "Jack…" But there was nothing he could say. Jack turned away from him, and Ianto couldn't bring himself to stay any longer.

He ran out through the cog door, angrily dashing the tears off his cheeks, and outside, the shock of what he had just said hit him. He slid down, his knees collapsing out from under him. The tears were coming faster now. He couldn't stop them.

By the time he got home, Ianto was crying with everything he had left. Funny how tonight, he didn't deserve to sleep. But the instant he hit the bed, his eyes closed anyway. And he could taste the irony as he drifted off, surrounded by guilt.

* * *

The sun rose on Cardiff Bay.

It was a beautiful sight, golden and orange and pink. But there was nobody there to see it. The city was still sleeping. Save five people.

It would have been an otherwise insignificant morning, but **today. **Today marked the dawn of Cardiff's first peaceful contact with alien life. And that meant it was extraordinary. Ianto was determined not to let anybody ruin it. Not even himself.

He'd woken up that morning, guilt crashing down on him, the full ramifications of what had happened the night before becoming clear to him. He gone through his morning routine automatically, but by the time he went out the door, he'd decided to put it behind him. Or at least try. Today was too important to risk losing on his and Jack's relationship right now. He would be professional.

His plan went to pieces the instant he walked through the door and saw Jack. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked almost as bad Ianto. Ianto immediately went up to him, telling himself it was just to offer Jack coffee. But when he got there, he found himself only saying one word.

"Jack." Quietly. Painfully. "Jack, I'm so…. I'm so sorry. You have to know I—"

Jack turned away from him. Again. He'd left. Ianto turned away angrily. _What was that? You said you were going to be professional. _

"Tosh." It was a cry for help, as well of one of relief. She had just appeared from around the corner. "Did Jack fill you in about last night?"

"Yeah. It's brilliant isn't it? This is so exciting! He said he was going to let me be one of the two to come with you, so I came in early…"

Ianto drifted off as Tosh continued to talk about the mission today. How the alien had contacted him, had asked about their technology. Said that something was coming. How they'd set up a meeting. A peaceful exchange of information. It didn't surprise him that Jack had asked Tosh to be one of the three going.

"The only thing I can't figure out is why Jack called me at practically five o' clock in the morning to fill me in. He at least could've waited until I was _awake_. I can't even remember what he said about it, something along the lines of taking his mind of things…" Ianto's head snapped up.

"What?"

"Oh." Tosh started in surprise. She'd gotten the sense that Ianto wasn't really paying attention, but just staying there to be polite. She had just been so excited about it she'd wanted to talk to him anyway. Regardless of how much attention he was paying her. "Well, he just said… he said something had happened when I asked him about it, and then told me a little bit more about what was going on today." Tosh looked a little more closely at Ianto, and suddenly she saw it. "Oh, Ianto."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Nothing." She shook her head. His eyes were red, and his hair was a complete mess. He just looked… exhausted. Defeated.

She reached out her hand to him, touching his arm. She asked as gently as she could, concerned. "Are you alright?"

He averted his eyes. "I'm fine." He was lying, and he knew that she could tell. She let it lie. "Okay."

"I'm fine." He smiled brightly. "Let's talk more about this mission today."

Ianto only learned who his second companion was as he was getting ready to leave. Tosh was sat by her computer waiting for the location message. She was practically bouncing in excitement. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and Ianto couldn't help but smile, genuinely. She'd been debating which equipment to bring with her all day, and had finally narrowed it down to what looked like an entire lab. Oh well. As long as she could carry it all. And work it, to boot.

Ianto was definitely glad to have her along. He loved her to pieces. He just hoped she would be able to accomplish everything she'd planned. This was an actual mission, after all. Suddenly, he was aware of a presence behind him. Jack.

"So, everything ready to go?" It was the first time Ianto had heard him speak since last night. He sounded… perfect. Like he was back to normal. Ianto had to make an effort to avoid eye contact, and see how Jack was really faring. Jack could have sounded cheerful when the world was ending, and convince you of it too. Reading him was easier through his eyes.

Tosh spoke up. "Yeah! You ready to go?"

_Jack was coming? _

"Definitely. Let's go for it."

_This is wonderful! No, no, I mean… _Ianto sighed. _Just let it be. You're ecstatic that Jack is coming with you. Maybe we can just… be. Just for today. We can be like we were before. _

"Ianto?" A hand on his shoulder. "Are you ready to go?" Ianto looked up, and met Jack's eyes. Pain. Concern. Honesty. A question of forgiveness. Ianto realized he was leaning into Jack's touch, and pulled back as strongly as he could against the desire to hold him. To tell him that it was all his fault. That Jack would never need his forgiveness.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready to go. Let's do this."

Tosh filled the car ride to Pontcanna Fields with excited chatter. It was easy for her to fill the silence. She talked about everything from what kind of technology the creatures might use to how the aliens apparently wanted to make the meeting convenient for them. Pontcanna Fields was only about half and hour away, and big enough so that they could avoid attention. But also far enough close enough to civilization so that Torchwood would be safe, should something happen. It was pretty perfect.

Jack jumped on that conversation, and it carried them all the way to the rendezvous point. Ianto was getting a little fidgety. He was nervous without his gun. His body felt lighter. There was a hand on his shoulder again, suddenly. Ianto looked over to see Jack smiling at him.

"Hey. It's alright."

Ianto relaxed a little, breathing out a sigh.

"Thank you."

"Any time."

They pulled into the parking lot of the park three minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. They'd made it faster than they had thought. As a consequence, both parties would be arriving at almost the exact same time. Jack relaxed a little too. Obviously these aliens were smart, but they were also cooperating. They had taken Torchwood's paranoia into account. Everything pointed to the fact that they would be safe here for the duration of the meeting. Good.

They hiked for a bit, silent in anticipation. They arrived at a large clearing, green, and quite beautiful. Jack merely glanced around, making sure they were alone, and ensuring his escape routes. Ianto stood in the middle, between Tosh and Jack, standing up tall, and looking for all essence like someone in a business meeting. Tosh was busy calibrating her translator when the creatures arrived. Or… creature. Who looked exactly like the one that had shot Ianto.

"You!" Jack immediately reached for his holster, only to find that it was empty. He mentally cursed. He'd come without his usual arms, as a sign of trust. And he _had _trusted these people. They knew… somehow, they'd known he cared about Ianto, wouldn't let anything happen to him. Jack made a split second decision.

"You have about 30 seconds to explain before I pull out the knife you _know_ I have, and get the hell out of here after performing a guarnatee of our security."

The creature held his hands out, open palmed, peacefully. "They thought it would be better if I came alone. Presumably, they were right. Please, give us a chance. The situation remains unchanged."

Ianto straightened up in curiosity. "You speak English."

"No. We have a translator."

Tosh punched the air. "I knew it! This is brilliant! Oh." Her smile faded. "Except this means that I can't test **my** translator. Darn it all."

Ianto snickered. Jack was staring at them both in astonishment. Tosh he could understand. Sometimes she really didn't get the gravity of the field. But Ianto?

"Have you gone insane?"

Ianto rolled his eyes for what had to be the thirtieth time within a week. He pulled Jack to the side. "Jack, if they wanted to kill us, they wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of scheduling a meeting. Plus they could have shot me on sight. But they didn't. Let's just hear them out."

Jack gazed at Ianto for a second. What he saw there convinced him.

"Okay. But I'll be watching them."

Ianto smiled. "I would be worried if you didn't." They both turned to face the centaur again. "Okay." Jack demanded. "Explain."

"May I show your companion?"

"What do you mean?" Jack shot a worried glance towards Ianto. He felt like he was under examination.

"This." Jack suddenly gasped out loud, and flung out an arm to Ianto, which he caught, pulling Jack closer to him. Jack's gaze was unfocused. Jack couldn't see him.

"What did you do?" Ianto wasn't aware he was shouting. "Jack? Jack!"

His gaze was clear again, looking at Ianto briefly before looking past him to the centaur. "How did you do that?" Jack was breathless.

"It is difficult. But necessary."

Jack looked towards Ianto one more time, before facing the creatures again. "Alright."

"What do you mean Jack? What hap-"

All of a sudden, Ianto couldn't see. Darkness. He could still feel his breath, his chest rising and falling. Jack was grasping at his shoulders, the dim muffle of speech, but his hands warm and reassuring.

And then it felt like he'd… opened his eyes. Kind of.

He saw: _The TARDIS, changed. Wrong. A world ending paradox. Don't tell them. Only you can know. A man, red suspenders, bow tie, the Doctor. The box. The painting. River Song. A crack in the fabric of reality, a void, an infestation. What they'd done. What they will do. Torchwood, handing over the technology that healed the Rift. The technology that will heal so much more, focus the energy, repair the world. It was vital. The universe. A crack built into the fabric of space that required so many variables to repair that those without the mainframe built _to _repair it could tear apart the world. Himself, tugging Jack to him and smiling. A white explosion of light. Peace._

Images were flowing into his mind at the speed of light, understanding overtaking him. He felt like he was frozen as they burned through him, white noise in his ears that suddenly became a voice as the images faded away.

"I thought you were going to give me time to explain! Ianto? Ianto are you okay? I know it's overwhelming." Ianto was jerked back into the clearing with a jolt. Jack's hands were on either side of his face. He turned his head to look at the centaur, breathing heavily.

"What… What was that?" Ianto panted.

The centaur nodded towards Jack, and Ianto looked at him, seeking some kind of answer.

Jack glared at the alien, then focused on Ianto once again. "They showed you what they wanted you to see. A product of their own mind, not of yours. They did it to me too, that's what happened earlier. And that's what they meant when they said they wanted to speak with you alone. I have no idea what you just saw. Only that they couldn't have gotten into _your _mind. Which is why I agreed to it." Jack glared at the alien again. "I was going to ask you about it first though!"

"Jack, it's okay. I was just startled, that's all." He looked toward the centaur. That sense seemed to kick into gear once again, and Ianto just looked into the creature's eyes knowingly. It nodded once, respectfully, towards him. Okay. It looked like they had an agreement.

Jack was whipping his neck back and forth, glancing between the two of them suspiciously, and Tosh was just busy typing into her computer frantically.

"Okay, what is going on? What exactly did they show you?" Oh no. Jack was not going to like this. Ianto avoided eye contact as he spoke.

"Well… I can't exactly tell you."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean exactly what I said Jack. I _can't tell you._"

"What do you mean you can't tell me? What is so—"

"Um, guys?" Tosh had stopped typing.

"What?" Both said at the same time.

"That centaur just… disappeared."

"Fine. He'll be back later. Bloody aliens can't seem to leave me alone. Jack, c'mon. I have a feeling you and I are not done arguing."

* * *

When they arrived back at the Hub, Gwen and Owen were _finally_ there too. They both had a tendency to be late. Ianto, Jack and Tosh walked through the door, Tosh drifting behind the two helplessly.

"Where the hell have you all been?" Gwen was the first to speak up.

Tosh suddenly threw her hands up in exasperation and stalked over to her computer, leaving Jack and Ianto behind her. "Oh ask them! I doubt you'll get an answer though. The entire situation is confusing enough. I have no idea what happened, and they've been _at_ _it_ the entire bloody car ride back! I'll tell you, it's starting to get on my last nerve."

Gwen opened her mouth, confused beyond beleif, questions at the tip of her tongue, but that was as far as she got. The words _What happened? Where? What is going on? Where you on a mission? _were interrupted by Ianto. And all of a sudden another puzzle peice fell into place for Gwen as she realized that Jack and Ianto had obviously been bickering about something or other for a while. She bit back a snicker. This was too funny.

"Jack. We've been through this a million times. The only thing I can tell you is that I can't tell you anything. It's kind of a matter of _temporal paradox_! Can't you just let it go?"

"No. I can't let it go. What in the world did they do to convince you to just hand over their technology?"

"Well, maybe the fact that it's _theirs—"_

"That never would have made you give it to them before. We meet plenty of species who—"

"Jack look at me. Do I look any different?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Well then, trust me on this. They haven't bended my mind somehow. They haven't changed me. So _trust me_. This is important. This is necessary. We'll meet them in about an hour at the same place, give them the means to take care of something they've been trying to fix for a long time, and they won't ever bother us again. Is that okay?"

Jack looked at him and then grudgingly accepted. "Fine. I do trust you. Just be sure that this is the right thing to do."

"I'm sure."

* * *

The rest, of course, is history.

Ianto filled everyone in on the details of the mission eventually. When it was safe. Gwen and Owen too. Over a nice hot cup of tea.

This is what he told them, eventually.

As you might have surmised, the device the Palaxi asked for _was _theirs. They were an alien race who had been monotoring this crack in space for millenia. They had been in existence since the beginning of time itself. And eventually, after a lot of work, they realized that this crack was going to become a problem one day, and developed a machine that was built to affect it. The Rift in Cardiff was so similar to this universal rift that the box inadvertently had an affect on it. The box... focused the energy, calculated the dimensions of the crack, took in every single variable of the rift, and...affected it. As it had been built to do.

And this is what it did later on too, when the Doctor (the eleventh reincarnation of the Doctor, to be exact) decided to go ahead and agitate the universal crack in time, completely rip apart the balanced situation, and then _eventually_ fix it, with an exploding TARDIS. The box existed to help, and so it did.

But at this time, the box was, of course, in the hands of Torchwood Cardiff. The Palaxi had tried to get it back, following the box through the Rift, but Torchwood had gotten their hands on it first. So then they'd had to contact Ianto- to get it back. The mission had been successful (thanks to Ianto), and the Palaxi had jumped back through the Rift, into the future, and pretty much helped the Doctor save the world by using this amazing device.

Tosh was okay with that, because before they'd had to return the ... mini-computer, she'd been able to get a full scan of it's programs and algorithms. It was fascinating. But anyway.

So... Ianto explained eventually, after the risk of paradox had passed. But that night, none of them were really confident that they had really accomplished anything. After everything was over and done with, they all went home to empty beds. Desolate flats. And they had their doubts.

They were just five people. So small. How could five people possibly defend a whole city? Sometimes, beyond the bravado, and the shooting, and the fighting, there wasn't anything besides lonliness. Isolation And fear.

There was desperation, not courage. There was a sense of duty. But beyond all that, beyond that, sometimes they were just five people, small and weak and occasionally useless. When people watched them, it was through a lens of slight resentment and admiration. The team swaggered in- all business-like, with sharp suits, and a quite dashing coat, and a confident walk that spoke of experience with these things. All people knew about them were the rumors that floated through police forces, the reports from the higher-ups who pretended that they had knowledge because they had authority.

The unbelievable details about who they _really_ were, had only been heard by the ones that dealt with them every now and again. UNIT knows for a fact what they do, as well as the Crown, and the victims and witnesses never say a word. But that's most likely because they don't remember.

It's the little people, the ones who slip through the cracks, who hear the most accurate stories. The secretaries, the lieutenants, the lawyers. And very occasionally, the student next door.

To be fair, the police (Kathy Swanson and Capt. Andy) noticed more than most other civilians. They noticed the slight bulge behind the jacket of that tall man in the suit, who always stood behind the captain. They noticed how most of them would reach towards their waist or inside their coats, if something looked like it was about to go wrong. They noticed how that Japanese girl, the short one, always seemed to know exactly the kind of things she shouldn't, and always had access to more information than they were privy too.

It didn't matter anyway. These things that were noticed about them—it was just enough detail to make people _think_ that they knew what went on behind the scenes_. _But you had to see all of it to really know. You had to see the slow days, as well as the action-packed days, and you had to see the paperwork that seemed insignificant until you read the cause of death, and then 'remaining threat', and knew that there was no insurance policy for deceased.

You had to see the stark brightness of the Hub, and the restless nervousness that infected every member of the team when there was no Rift activity, you had to know that they were dying for something to happen to break the silence, the anticipation, and did not, at the same time, really _want_ anything to happen, because it could end in tragedy.

They weren't the confident, ruthless pursuers of justice that they appeared to be. They didn't have families. They didn't have any sons, or daughters, or grandchildren. All they had was each other.

And while that may have seemed like a family, and was, in a non-blood related way, it wasn't what Tosh had pictured for herself growing up, or what Gwen _wanted_. They had responsibility, yes. Enormous responsibility. They had passion. They were connected to each other with more than the mere friendship of _civilians_. And they loved. That was important. When you can love….that's when you're no longer a child.

But they were also all still searching for some meaning in their lives. Isn't everybody, no matter how impossible a job they may have? No matter how thankless their work may be, or how interesting, or how unknowable, isn't _everybody_ searching for something that makes their life meaningful? Something that will ensure they die remembered somewhere? By a lover, by a child, by a cause.

Everyone is searching, and everyone is lost, and yet they still see Torchwood as a clique. A group of people fitting together so seamlessly that they can do anything. Sure Andy, okay. Yes, that's what we do.

Save people, defy the big bad wolf; suffer the acceptable price to do it. Yes, Andy, yes, Cardiff, that's my job. If you believe it, I can believe it too. No matter that I go home every night, and lie in my bed, alone, and wonder what my life has come to that I have to ask myself if I'm still sane enough to go into work tomorrow, if I'm still _useful_. And even though I'm alone, it seems as if I should feel something other than despair, because I know that four other _human beings _in this small, small world are all at home in their beds too, wondering the exact same things.

But I don't.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day was quiet. Kind of.

The previous night everyone had gone home… confused, to say the least. Each had made their own decision on how to deal with the whole time-travel paradox deal, the aliens who targeted Ianto then _needed_ Ianto, and...they were trying to move on.

The next day, Tosh and Ianto worked in silence for a while. Tosh was perfecting their Rift Predictor Program. She enjoyed it. Any kind of programming, really. Ianto was following a few leads on late night comets over the Bay that weren't really comets. The Hub was eerily calm, even when Owen and Gwen came in, arguing over the merits of rugby. It didn't fit.

The atmosphere was one that reminded Toshiko of the clean suits in London. Go to work, limited contact with 'co-workers', go home. It was wrong. They were a _family._ There should be teasing and laughing and…Ianto and Jack should be together. This must've been the most in-sync the team had felt all year. But it still wasn't enough. Jack had returned, and it seemed like he had changed. That he cared about them even. He wasn't so afraid anymore. He'd become the…link between the team. But even has started to slowly reassume his central place in Torchwood, he'd encouraged every single one of them to be a little bit more open, to connect to each other as a team, without him. And it was working. Slowly.

Maybe they would change. Maybe Ianto would leave, or Jack would start to see someone else. God knows he still flirted non-stop. But meanwhile, Tosh and Owen had a plan.

A brilliant plan. Ingenious even. And it was a plan that would probably get them slowly tortured by Ianto. But, you know, every plan has risks.

This particular plan had to do with what they both knew would happen today. It was a pre-emptive strike. Ianto would come back to work, early, as always. Jack would be at a loss of what to do as Ianto treated him with the same frosty professionalism that he used when he was trying to protect himself. As a result, Jack would limit his contact with Ianto, and Ianto would be hurt by Jack's lack of concern. And eventually the whole situation would explode. They both cared about each other much more than they were ever willing to admit.

First they had to recruit Gwen to their plan. Tosh and Owen had been working on this for the past couple days. It shouldn't be that hard. Gwen wanted to restore normality to the office just as much as anyone else. Tosh was in charge, as the central element of the plan was focused around an alien artifact. It quite resourceful, if she did say so herself. Gwen and Owen were in charge of getting Ianto and Jack in the right place at the right time.

Gwen and Owen came in on the comms almost simultaneously.

_Toshiko. Jack's in his office. Let's do this thing._

_Tosh? Ianto's in section 3 of the archives. Is everything ready?_

Toshiko smiled slightly, worried and nervous. Maybe this would actually work. Hopefully. _Right. Let's get this party started. _She started to type.

* * *

As soon as Jack knew felt the world disappearing around him, he started to draw his Webley. He had been forcibly teleported one time too many not be prepared for anything that was coming at him. For all he knew he could reappear in prehistoric Africa, just in time to have a dinosaur charging at him.

So, when he did reappear, his hand was already on the holster of his gun and he was instantly alert for any potentially life-threatening situations. Only there were none. It must have been a little amusing for Ianto watching his boss deliberate at what to point a gun at; especially when the choices were between one blank white wall and another blank white wall.

"Where the hell am I?"

Ianto let out a chuckle and Jack swung around, in a rigid stance of aggression his gun aimed towards Ianto, immediately pointing it towards the floor when he noticed the room's second occupant.

"What?"

Ianto laughed harder.

"Yeah, yeah very funny. Did you have something to do with this?"

Jack's accusatory question was cut off by a glare from Ianto. "No I did not. Now, I would appreciate it if you would be somewhat helpful and _shut up_. I have a killer headache." He sat back and crossed his arms, closing his eyes, fully intent on ignoring Jack until they either got out or he died from stubbornness. Knowing Jack, he would most likely do...something, to make the situation even more uncomfortable than it already was. Ianto felt like bursting out into tears but he didn't want to cry. Not again.

"Oh no you don't. Do you know where we are?"

Well, that was about as polite as Jack was bound to get. And he wouldn't leave the issue alone. Couldn't the man just _be quiet_ for once? Although Ianto supposed that would be a tad impossible for the man to be quiet anywhere. Not even in bed. Jack was the loudest out of both of them. He was quite surprised that the rest of the team hadn't caught them yet, hearing them in the office. Especially that time in the archives when Jack had been sprawled out over the desk downstairs, he seemed to sparkle in the dim lighting, tanned, beautiful, out of breath. He'd been trailing kisses down Ianto's jaw line, and _he'd_ been—

Ianto jerked out of his fantasy with a sharp intake of breath, suddenly realizing that his breathing rate had increased. Was it hot in here? He tugged on his tie, trying to loosen is slightly.

He tried to remember what Jack had asked him, avoiding Jack's gaze as best he could. And found himself drawing a blank. _Damn it!_

"Ianto?" _Oh my god. How does he _do_ that?_

"Hm?"

"I asked if you knew where we were."

"Oh! Of course. Yeah, we, um… we appear to be in a form of virtual limbo. It's kind of the metaphysical equivalent of the team handcuffing our wrists together until we make up." Ianto gave himself a mental slap, trying to steer his thoughts away from the idea of being handcuffed to anything. _I wonder… _He was distracted when he suddenly remembered what they were doing here. _Good, just as well. Humph. _a small voice said in the back of his mind. The rest was busy being pissed off. He glared that the ceiling, shifting the topic of their conversation.

"When I find out who was responsible for this little idea, they **will** pay. Forget about decaf: I'll make instant if I have too! Revenge is forthcoming." He paused, thoughtful. "Except for maybe you Tosh. I'll be irritated, but I would never do that to you. Anyone else, **beware.**"

Back in the Hub, Owen groaned and put his head in his hands, starting to talk for the benefit of his co-conspirators, Gwen and Tosh. "Oh great. Yeah. Sure. Tosh doesn't have to deal with the menopausal Tea boy, but me, I'm dead. Revenge! This is a disaster." Both Tosh and Gwen started giggling.

"Well you are the one who came up with this. And it was a good idea." Gwen pointed out.

"I did not come up with this idea! All I said was that if they were going to fight, they should at least get it all out in an isolated area. Preferably very far away from me. Tosh was the one who designed this whole twisted program. You scare me sometimes. Explain it again? Without the computer programming talk please."

Jack closed his mouth before it threatened to permanently stay that way. "Ok yeah sure, whatever- revenge." His voice deepened and Jack raised his hands and wriggled his fingers in a ghoul-like fashion. "Now what exactly is this metaphysical limbo thing?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "In technical terms, _someone_ probably used an alien artifact to transfer both of us into streams of data, now locked inside a computer until the users decide to reprogram us into physical beings. The users namely being the team." He started to talk to himself, ignoring Jack, speculating on the program Tosh had most likely designed. "They probably can't actually see us. Tosh could be reading the equipment, trying to get a hold on our emotions, but it's unlikely that they have an image."

He disappeared into his thoughts, still talking to himself, trying to sort out what was going on. Jack smiled without realizing it. This had always been one of the things he most admired in Ianto. He was always trying to find a solution to the situation, trying to figure it out. It was one of the reasons Jack had hired him in the first place.

Ianto was stubborn, and smart, and clever, and he didn't really ever give up on something. And he was the most exceptional man Jack had ever met.

"What about hearing? They might be able to pick up on what we're saying. I suppose it depends on what the computer reads. It's pretty advanced. I wonder if we can access any basic internet functions. There must be a projected algorithm for every possible physical or mental reaction. We are obviously in control of what we say and do..." he stopped pacing. "Jack?" _Damn._

_**He called me Jack**_. _Butterflies in his stomach, and his heart did something complicated in his chest. He called me Jack. What does that mean for us?_"Hmmm? What?"

"Why are you staring at me?" _He's been doing it for the last five minutes. Did he think I wouldn't notice? I can feel his gaze on me. It's too distracting. He looks confused about something._

"Uh...No reason. The real question is how do we get out of here?" Jack looked at him expectantly.

_Great. I knew this would come up eventually. And he expects me to do something about it. Well, too bad. He's on his own with this. _

For once, Ianto didn't censor what he said and sighed exasperatingly at him. "Well what do **you** suppose that we do? Owen and, most likely, Tosh, are in charge of this little operation. They won't let us out until they want too, and even if I wasn't stuck inside a computer program, I would have a little trouble hacking Tosh's system. We could be stuck here for hours." He slumped back onto the wall where he had been sitting before, and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

The emotions whirling through him right now were overwhelming. He was going from one extreme to another. All because of being trapped in this ridiculously small room with Jack. It was taking all his self control to try and keep his emotions locked inside his mind, and not let Jack know what was going through his head. Jack saw straight through him sometimes, no matter how defensive he was. It was eerie. Whose stupid idea was this program anyway! They were all going to pay.

Jack, meanwhile, was shocked. He hesitantly asked a second question. He always had a tendency to throw himself into dangerous situations.

"But what can we do?"

"Nothing, Jack." Ianto sighed. "It's like being in isolation. We don't really have any power here. There's nothing we _can _do."

The room fell silent. The quick banter had stopped, and inevitable tension settled over the place like a cloud. Together, alone, the pretenses fell, and yet both Ianto and Jack still tried to shield themselves from what they believed to be unavoidable pain. On a basic level, the silence was simply awkward. But they were used to it, and neither knew what to say to make the situation a better one. The silence was calm. And angry, hurt. There were a lot of things neither of them had talked about yet. And Ianto wanted it to stay that way. Unlike Jack.

* * *

They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity. Jack eventually sat too, resigned. He was shadowing Ianto's attitude, up to a point, in the fact that he didn't know what to do either. He didn't know what to say Ianto anymore. The strain was etched into his face, even as he slid down the wall and tried to give all the appearance of one who was effortlessly at ease. He couldn't handle the pretenses anymore, and he couldn't give them up, because he just _didn't know what to do._

Ianto tried to hold on to those pretenses too. _Tried, _being the operative word. But the nervousness was there, and it was obvious, at least to Jack, that he had been seeking some source of closure ever since… ever since he had realized Jack was back.

Jack knew, then, that Ianto didn't need him anymore. He really didn't, even if he thought he did. He could get over Jack. Jack had suspected it ever since he had come back to his team, his team that had changed. But at this moment, he _knew. _Ianto didn't need him anymore. It was just a question of whether or not Ianto wanted him.

It was Fate playing with him once again. It was hard not to believe in fate now, when all the things that had happened to him were so wrecking to his life, that eventually, it just seemed like all the events were part of a grander plan, designed to destroy him.

The damn universe, God, or something, something out there was just messing around with his head, because she knew that he couldn't help loving people. He was that type of person. The one man who should never been allowed to live forever was cursed with an existence that repeatedly killed him. _Every damn day. _

He was lost, drifting in a sea of black ink that sucked him in more every time he tried to escape it through finding a purpose. And what kind of a man was he, where nothing he tried to do made even the slightest mark on his life. What kind of man was he when nothing he did was worthwhile? What kind of man was he now, as he hurt everyone around him with the cynicism this eternal death had given him? He felt like a failure.

He died. He loved. He over-thought. He went through months where all he did was cry. He became the man he had always wanted to be. Simple. He left his past behind, and it came back to haunt him. He became self-centered, arrogant, reckless. He became desperate. He shielded himself, and he became mysterious.

All he did was lie. All he did was love. He became alone. The one person who couldn't possibly find a way to live with the blessing of immortality was granted with just that. Life. Time. Freedom. Somewhere up there, Fate was laughing at him, manipulating his life into a catastrophe of misery. No solace, no relief.

It changed him. It changed him more than he ever thought it could. He used to be young. Like—

When he started out, the determination was unshakeable. But eventually he realized they weren't coming back. And determination turned to despair. That was it, the change.

The Doctor had abandoned him. And he hadn't realized he had needed someone to drag him out of the black hole his life was becoming, because he still held that spark of hope that the Doctor would return from him. He hadn't thought he needed anybody. He would find the Doctor again. Eventually. And then he met Ianto.

Leaving to the Doctor… Jack realized that Ianto had saved him. He really had. And he couldn't repay that kindness and that loyalty and that _trust_ with abandonment. He had to go back.

And then he got captured and the one thing that saved him from madness, again, was picturing Ianto's face. And after going over their encounters, over and over and over again in his head, after replaying every word they had exchanged, Jack realized that Ianto had fallen in love with him. And after being freed, and remembering what had kept him sane for all those months of torture, Jack thought that he was probably in love with Ianto too.

So he came back hoping. And then everything just went to hell.

He had fallen in love again, with Ianto. He just didn't want to admit it. He wanted to sob with the unfairness of it, and die from the pain of it, and then he looked into that man's eyes and he still _hoped._

Jack knew that Ianto didn't need him anymore. It hurt… and yet Jack was still willing to suspend every instinct of his that told him to let it go, and hope beyond all reason that he was still the center of Ianto's universe. Because Ianto had become the center of his.

He had given Jack peace. In this life…._this _one, he'd found answers, and realizations, and he'd wanted to go home. And he hoped maybe they would have some time too. There wasn't a part of him that realized that this was only just the beginning of his life, yet. Only a few centuries. Ironic, but that epiphany hadn't come yet.

For now, Jack smiled wryly. He thought that realizations were apparently in style these days. None of it mattered anyway… not if Ianto hated him. Not if Ianto was going to leave him. Again. On his own.

Meanwhile, Ianto was thinking. He was lying on the floor now, looking up at the ceiling. _I can't do this anymore. This is it. I'm not going to be able to keep this up any longer. _He was giving up. Tosh was going to give him an earful, but Ianto just couldn't take all this anymore. He had been under an emotional onslaught ever since Jack disappeared into 1949, and as far as he was concerned, Jack could now go to hell. But he didn't mean that.

Ianto didn't know what to do anymore. _There's no way out of here without….without doing something I will definitely regret later. I don't want to think about it._

After ten minutes, he spoke. Unwillingly. He couldn't hold it in any more. It was an almost silent murmur, but in the small, virtual white room, Jack heard it.

"I can't do this anymore."

He looked up, curious. This one time, Jack was staggeringly grateful for the team's interference. The man had remained stubbornly silent every moment they were alone together. He could do that astoundingly well.

Jack gave a small half-smile as he realized how proficient Ianto actually was at that. It was unerringly frustrating. Anyway, he _had_ remained silent. Until now.

"Do what?"

Ianto suddenly stood up, fluidly rising to gesture restlessly in the air. "This damn **job** Jack. It's just impossible. Everything we see, **everyday.** How can a team of five people possibly deal with all of that? I've been doing this for so long. I was recruited into Torchwood when I was 18, you know that? I've been working here for eight years. I don't even know what normal **is** anymore. I visit my family, and I can't even talk to them because of this job." Ianto ended quietly. He hadn't meant to say that much. He was letting Jack in again. Not by choice.

Jack, meanwhile, was thinking. Of course that was what Ianto would say. Of course. Despair was welling up inside him, and resignation, but when he spoke again, acknowledging his worst fear, Jack was angry and defensive. "So….what? Do you want to quit?"_ I'll be alone again. Again._

Impossibly, Ianto didn't notice. He always noticed. Indignation and annoyance shot through Jack. Underneath that was grief. He always noticed. _Ianto. _Ianto always, always helped him. Or…he used too. But it was like he had just been waiting for this argument, and it didn't matter what Jack said, because the end result would be the same anyway.

"No…I don't. No, Jack. I don't want to quit, because even if I did I **can't**. I just can't Jack. I can't walk away from the Hub. I can't walk away from the job, or even this whole insane universe that I've somehow found a purpose in. I can't walk away from you. And **of course**, you. You're the most impossible thing of all Jack. You-" Ianto forced himself to cut off his flow of speech there, but he couldn't help but iterating the rest in his mind. There was so much more he could have said. So much more he **wanted** to say.

_You're the one_._ The end-all. You're the _one. _You're the one who makes me happy in the morning, just seeing you. I can't walk away from Torchwood, because it's impossible to walk away from you, because it's my whole life now. I love you. Don't you see that? It scares the hell out of me. I don't even know when it happened. _How _it happened again…. After Lisa. Surely you must notice. _Please _notice Jack._

Jack would have given up anything to hear what was going through Ianto's head right now. Equally so, Ianto had forced himself to stop because, right at this moment, he couldn't bear Jack knowing so much about him. He couldn't give up anymore. He hadn't even meant to say the things he had said.

Jack was still looking on, hoping, and worrying, and about a minute away from telling Ianto everything that had happened since he'd been away, and everything he felt for the man but had never admitted to himself; and falling to his knees, begging Ianto to take him back. But all he could do was stand there. He was literally frozen. What stopped him was the doubt. It had been programmed into him. Or maybe it was just something he'd never felt before, but that everyone had to deal with. He hadn't thought of that. Maybe.

Ianto looked like he was agonizing over something. Jack hadn't seen him look this torn over a situation since...since—He took a deep breath. It didn't matter anymore.

He raised his head, and Ianto looked at him. Ianto met his eyes. Ianto looked right through him. Jack didn't care. The expression on his face…. It was heartbroken. His eyes were shining with… something that Jack didn't want to acknowledge, and the next words out of his mouth had Jack more confused than ever. Frozen in time, standing still, trying to act in some way that wouldn't hurt Ianto anymore than he already had. So this was what desperation felt like.

"I _love _you."

Jack didn't think the situation could get anymore tense than it already was. Of course he was wrong. His mind froze. Not Ianto. _Please_.

_I can admit it to myself. I can. See! But _please_ not him. I don't want to know. Set him free, and let me keep hoping until he leaves me. Let me hope while he falls in love with someone else, someone normal. Let me keep hoping as he starts a life with someone who isn't me,, and decides to leave this god-awful job and start a real life. And my heart will break, and I will die again because I would know that he will be happy without me. But he would be _safe. _Just_ _let him go! _Jack didn't know who he was talking to with that last thought. Destiny, God, fate.

Himself.

Ianto stood up in one fluid motion, rising to his feet, and Jack was once again struck by how graceful he was. _He's so beautiful._ Ianto was extraordinary. He could have anyone he wanted. That fact made the next words cut into Jack all the more, and he reached out, helpless.

"I'm in love with you. I didn't _choose _this, but I-" Ianto stopped, with his mouth open slightly. He didn't know what to say. Emotions of their own volition, he supposed. I came from some part of his mind that was taking a back seat to the proceedings at this moment in time.

"There aren't…there aren't words. There isn't anything that I can even come up with myself, to justify how much I _care _about you."

Ianto took a few shaky steps towards him. All Jack knew was that suddenly, Ianto was right in front of him, less than six inches away, with his hands at either side of Jack's head, looking straight at him. "I _need you_, Jack. I love you." Ianto felt the words in his mouth, mentally thinking about how they felt. Trying not to hope.

When Jack opens his mouth next, and admits and acts on the feelings that he's had ever since he met Ianto, but has not acknowledged them, he realizes he has lost.

Maybe he had always been going to lose. But that didn't make what he said next any easier, because Jack knew what he _should _say, what would be best for Ianto, and what he was going to say. Jack knew that he wanted Ianto too much to ever let go, unless Ianto did it for him. He had lost.

And Jack didn't even realize he was speaking until the words came stumbling out of his mouth, doing no justice whatsoever to what he was trying to say. Against his own volition.

"Ianto I…I want you, and I know you can't forgive me, and-"

Ianto took another step closer to him and Jack could feel the heat from his body, and as he inhaled shakily, he closed his eyes. His thoughts were in fragments. Ianto was all there was. Ianto was _right there_. _Ianto._

"Ianto-" Jack gasped, his eyes fluttering shut. Gently, so gently, Ianto closed the gap between them, his chest pressed up against Jack's, his hands in Jack's hair.

"Shhhh."

And then Ianto kissed him.

Jack melted. Literally melted. That's what it felt like. It had been so long. The kiss grew more passionate, courtesy of Ianto, and Jack's mind went on vacation once again. He gasped into it, gripping on Ianto as tightly as he could. The _why_ was not important right now.

Ianto's arms around him, his mouth fiercely pressed to Jack's. Ianto was solid and determined, firmly connecting himself to Jack. The heat of his hands on his own shoulders, chest against his own. Jack gasped into his mouth and brought up his hands up to grasp at the back of Ianto's jacket, desperately pulling him in closer. He could_ taste_Ianto again, sharp and bittersweet and burning against his own kiss. Jack was helpless in the onslaught of the violent sensation.

Ianto, on the other hand, was beyond coherent thought.

Jack seemed to be overwhelming him. Ianto was trembling in his embrace. It felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. He was desperate now. Ever since that first kiss with Jack, since he had returned, he had been falling apart. It was only a matter of time. He gripped at Jack's back, pouring all his emotion into that kiss. He connected them more intimately, twisting his tongue into Jack's mouth, fiercely kissing him, bringing his hands up along Jack's neck, tracing his jaw line, running his fingers over his temple. Breathing him in.

Jack raised his hands to Ianto's face too, tilting his chin upwards slightly with his hands, and he was all there was. He was everything. There was nothing without him. Nothing.

They had both lost the battle they'd been fighting so hard with themselves to win. Ianto, trying to live without Jack, and Jack, trying to let Ianto go. They'd both lost. So why didn't it feel like losing at all?

* * *

As soon as Tosh got the reading from the computer, she pulled them out. She didn't care what Owen said, you could not fake emotion like that. Overwhelmingly, it was tenderness, caring. Pure love. She felt like she was intruding just by reading the numbers off the screen.

They appeared right in the middle of the Hub, with shimmering white lights dancing and slowly evaporating around them, locked in a fervent kiss. Tosh squeaked loudly. They were pressed together solidly; Jack's hand's weaving through Ianto's hair, and Ianto gripping back just as recklessly, swaying on his feet. Ianto seemed to be trying to regain control of himself, battling the part of him that wanted to shove Jack back against the Hub wall and keep kissing him. Ianto was putting everything he felt for Jack into this kiss.

And then Ianto walked Jack back a few steps and _did _pin him against the wall. He felt like he was melting. He had missed this _so _much. Ianto kept kissing him. He couldn't stop himself, just the sensation of it. And he felt like he was exploding into fireworks when he realized that Jack was kissing him too.

The first awkward cough was ignored. The second jolted Ianto back into the present setting like a kick in the gut. He sprang away from Jack, who was still breathing like he had just run a marathon. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed heavily, then opened his eyes and fled.

Jack was left standing at the foot of the stairs, a dazed look on his face, and his hand on his mouth; wondering what had just happened.

"Jack?"

"I—" Jack touched his mouth again, his eyes wide. He realized Ianto wasn't in the room anymore, and it was like metal shutters had dropped over his eyes.

Then all of a sudden, some kind of realization came over him, and he took three resolute steps towards the Hub couch and grabbed his coat. Now he looked panicked. "I have to go."

No-one moved until the Hub door shut, sirens loud as ever, melodramatic exit still affecting the audience.

Owen raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

* * *

As predicted by millions of movies and TV shows, the co-conspirators were trying to find someone to blame… now that the plan had gone wrong.

Tosh, Gwen and Owen were less than few feet from each other, each one being insufferable in their own unique way. The petty arguing had developed into conjectures about what might have happened, then blame towards the plan, then blame towards the planners, then a deeply hypothetical and intense argument about Jack and Ianto, what had happened, and what they were going to do about it.

"The whole point of the program was to give neither of them the upper hand in the relationship! They don't get to choose where to make a confrontation. It's a neutral area."

"Well, that idea has gone to hell, hasn't it? Jack may as well just be some random bloke off the street for all the power he has over Ianto. Frankly, I didn't know the tea boy had it in him. I mean, I've tried to shut Jack up, and believe me, it is not easy. Ianto was in there for all of 5 minutes, and Jack is eating out of the palm of his hand."

"That's not the point!"

"But Tosh that is the point!"

Tosh sighed, exasperated. Gwen. She always had an opinion. Normally, Tosh wouldn't even sigh. It wasn't a big deal; Gwen was practically expected to interfere with fights in the Hub. But for the past 15 minutes, Owen had steadily been driving her up the wall.

But, back to the not-so-unexpected interference. Usually, Tosh really valued that outspokenness in a person. And she liked Gwen, she really did. Secretly, she admired the woman. Gwen was strong. She spoke her mind, no matter what the cost. Tosh was even a little jealous of the effortless way she asserted her femininity.

It was kind of like cheating, and Tosh had never really felt comfortable with wearing lower tops or batting her eyelashes to get things done around the office. But seeing how people treated Gwen… she was starting to wonder whether men had any idea how powerless women felt at times.

Tosh tried to be confident. She had respect for herself, which was something that was lost with the types of charms women usually tended to utilize over men. No dignity in that. No self-respect. But the first thing Toshiko had noticed about the Welsh policewoman was that no matter how flirty or ridiculous she might seem sometimes, the woman was intelligent. She knew how to take action when something needed to be done. That steel…Gwen reminded her of Jack in that respect. She was intense about her work. And Tosh respected _that_.

Owen didn't even try to hide his distaste at being interrupted. Both of them, Owen and Tosh, had kind of been in their own little world. As far as Owen was concerned, this was their plan, and their argument, and Gwen had absolutely no business interrupting it. He groaned loudly.

Gwen glared at him, and continued resolutely with what she had begun to say.

"Look, I haven't known Ianto for all that long; but during this whole…Matrix computer-program thing, both Jack and Ianto did start out equally. And Ianto made some choices in there that may not have been for the best of their relationship, but truthfully, I am _ecstatic_ to see him standing up for himself for once! He's been practically invisible since I first started working here, and with Jack gone for a few months, at least he's found some individuality. Maybe now, he can figure out what he really wants."

Before they scattered, Tosh got the last word in. A soft statement that shouldn't have meant anything to the others, other than the fact that Tosh had apparently begun thinking out loud. But that statement stayed with all of them. And it was true.

With the forbidding silence of the not-quite-so silent Hub surrounding them, and the metal echoes of Jack's boots reaching them through the huge underground base; Tosh said this in her quiet, meaningful tone, and both Gwen and Owen took it to heart.

"Ianto needs to know where the two of them stand."


End file.
